Give me your pain
by River in Egypt
Summary: In my dream her voice said: "I am your equal" And turning away I snarled: "Deal with it." Her voice went: "You are not a killer, Draco." Nice timing, Granger, I thought when I woke up the day of Dumbledore's death. Canon 6th/7th year, A/U, EWE, Dramione. Cover by the amazing Freya Ishtar
1. Face off

_A/N: Did you ever wonder what role Malfoy really played in the fight Potter against Voldemort? Being as smart as he is why he never questioned the (well, with hindsight) very stupid teachings of the Dark Lord? Why he didn't just kill Dumbledore and be done with it? Why he refused to identify the three in Malfoy Manor in Deathly Hallows and why he averted Crabbe and Goyle from killing Harry in the Room of Requirements? Did you pay attention to these details while reading the books? I believe Draco Malfoy is not as one-dimensional as he was made out to be. And Hermione is more than a sidekick and brainiac next to Harry. She is in Gryffindor for a reason, isn't she? If she was __only__ the brain of the trio, she would have been in Ravenclaw._

_Here is my take on the story behind Harry's story._

_It is canon pretty much until shortly after the end of Deathly Hallows. EWE (Epilogue-what epilogue?) _

_Oh, WARNING: I don't want to offend any sensibilities, so I put it in the M category. There will definitely be stuff for only mature readers in later chapters. But even in the beginning, if you are offended by people being TORTURED and in PAIN and actually BLEEDING from injuries and SWEARING, DON'T READ THIS. _

_But in any case, let me know what you think._

_Let it begin_

_Disclaimer: You know it, I know it, it's making me depressed, so let's not talk about it. Do I need to say it? Alright, alright: characters do not belong to me, blablabla, JK Rowling and associates, blablabla, only the plot. There, now I'm really depressed. You happy now?_

**Give me your pain**

**Chapter 1: Face Off **

There they went again. Hermione Granger left the lift in the Ministry of Magic and could see the crowd by the Fountain, surrounding the excitement of the day: Potter and Malfoy facing off. Or Weasley and Malfoy. Again. She could see them from here in the middle of the gaggle, a red head moving, flanked by a dark, almost black head, across from the platinum blond. Other than when they had been at school, the blond head was not flanked anymore.

'When will they ever stop?' she wondered. It was so immature. And ridiculous like a Yo momma contest.

"So, how does it feel to be You-know-who's lap dog, hm?" The entire body of people flinched. Hermione rolled her eyes. Really, now. Wasn't it done and over with? When would he start using the late Dark Wizards name?

"I wouldn't know, Weasley. I was never his lap dog," the blond head responded. You could only sense his intense anger through the way he spoke very quietly and with glass cutting sharpness.

Ron snorted. "Yeah, right."

Harry laid his hand on Ron's arm to hold him back. Malfoy continued.

"I would have liked to see you in my position, Weasel. Would you have stood up to him, if he threatened to torture your mother? Or your sister? And if you had stood up and he killed you, who would have protected your mother then? Or your sister?"

Ron blanched. "Don't you dare talk about my sister. What do you know about family ties?"

Malfoy's anger faltered, and he sounded simply tired; the kind of tiredness that seeps into the bones. "I know enough that I couldn't bear seeing my mother hurt. And I did what was required to prevent that."

By now, Hermione had reached the crowd and made her way through the group of people surrounding the opponents curiously. Some were leaning into the verbal battle, waiting for it to escalate, hoping for a good fight; others were waiting anxiously for more information about the life of a supposed former Death Eater and why he was allowed to walk in their midst and not rot in Azkaban. Hermione's approach was from behind Malfoy, so he couldn't have seen her coming. But even Harry and Ron hadn't noticed her yet, focused as they were on the confrontation. She slowly made her way through the crowd and when she came close to Malfoy's back she squeezed by, passing the persons next to him without hesitation. She just reached out her magical field the tiniest bit, tendrils of energy stroking like fingers over a neck, touching Draco's. She could feel rather than see the shimmer of vibrations gliding over each other, like heat through a window. It felt like a slow stroke down the back with a very brief rest of a hand on the lower back, like a light caress for the fraction of a second. Malfoy's back straightened the tiniest bit for nobody else to see but her; and then he exhaled and she could feel his magic field expanding like fingers intertwining, touching hers. She continued onwards, without hesitation, until she reached Ron's side, indicating her alignment. There, she stopped and turned to face the other side of the stand-off.

"Malfoy" she greeted.

"Granger" he replied with a short jerk of the head.

"What's going on?" she questioned, turning to Harry.

Harry shook his head. "Oh, the usual. It started with him wanting to know where you were, and Ron flying of the handle telling him it was none of his concern; and he gave back saying that you could decide on your own with whom you kept company, and Ron talking back that it certainly wouldn't be a former Death Eater, if he had anything to say about it; and Malfoy saying that he didn't, and so on."

Hermione turned to face Malfoy again, raising her eyebrow in his direction. He stared back and just shrugged to answer her questioning look.

She hrmpfed and shook her head, to keep a smile from her face. Then she raised her hands and voice. "Okay, folks, nothing to see here. Go, wherever you need to go. There is plenty of work to be done. Shoo." She waved her hands in a shooing motion. The curious people groaned and slowly dispersed toward their own areas of work. Even Malfoy had turned with a last look and shrug at her.

Hermione slipped her arm under Harry's and dragged him toward the exits. "Come on, Harry, Ron, I could use a cuppa."

With a queer look and admiration in his voice, Harry questioned: "How did you do that?"

Hermione tried to ignore his question. It would still not do to go into detail about the power she had over Malfoy.

Harry, however, was not to be diverted. Sometimes he was just too sharp. "Hermione?"

"Hm?" Hermione replied distractedly. Harry stopped and pulled her with him to a standstill. She startled and looked up at him: "What?"

Harry's green eyes bored into her. "Answer me!"

She gulped and tried to stall. "Erm, what was the question?" Think, Hermione, quick.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "How come Malfoy listens to you, of all people?"

Hermione faked a nervous laugh. "I don't know, Harry. Maybe because we work together and do it well and he respects my natural authority?" She shrugged and grinned. She felt like a maniac grinning; it tucked on her face.

Harry still scrutinized her, when Ron burst out laughing. "Ha, Hermione, that's a good one."

Hermione put her grin up a notch, until Harry started grinning as well: "You think?"

Hermione chuckled. "How in Merlin's name should I know, why Malfoy all of a sudden starts listening to me?" Harry shrugged but she could see that his laugh had not reached his eyes. "You're right, who knows." His emerald green eyes bored into hers as if to say, I'll let you off this time, but I want a satisfying explanation soon.

"Right." Hermione mentally exhaled in relief. Situation averted for now. Until the next time. Harry was not to be put off much longer. He would have to know what happened to her and Malfoy in sixth year. She took both her friends arms and dragged them toward the stairs. "Okay, can we go get something to eat now? I'm starving, and I still have tons of things to do."

Now both young men seriously laughed. This was the Hermione they knew.

While they left the Ministry in search of a coffee place, the young men filled her in blow by blow, on exactly what Malfoy had said and how they had replied. Hermione listened only with one ear, taking care to chuckle at the appropriate places, while the other half of her brain reflected on the wonder of how her magical field had "stroked" his in such an intimate way and how he had responded and how good it had felt. Who would have thought that they had forged such a connection? Not her. And she was fairly certain that Malfoy had not expected it either.

_A/N: Good? Let me know. Cheers_

_2nd A/N (2/12/12): In light of many well-meaning fellow readers and writers who are telling me that my comments within the text are very annoying, I have started editing my chapters to take them out or to put them at the end of the chapter if I still deem them important. They stem from my initial insecurity as a writer, of course, trying to explain myself, but many are by now resolved. _

_Please, I am working on it. But between work (crazy) and my never ending creativity that drives me to come up with new snippets of stories that then badger my brain and want out, time to go over my completed monstrum is very limited. _

_You could help me, if you want to comment on my comments, where exactly you see them. They'll be quicker removed that way._

_Thank you for all your feedback. I do appreciate it_

_Best_

_River_


	2. Before

**2. Before**

It was cold up on the seventh floor late on Friday night, unusually cold for mid-September. Hermione thought she was almost able to see her breath on her way back from the library to the Gryffindor common room.

Her sixth year at Hogwarts had barely started and she was already up to her neck in work, trying to make the best of her study time. Madame Pince had not minded that she stayed past closing time, since Hermione was such an exemplary student and reliable with books and all. She had given her the spare key and told her to lock up when she was finished. Then she had left with the air of somebody who had to be somewhere on a Friday night.

Hermione had stayed and studied, until she fell asleep over her book. When she had awoken with a start later, she had quickly tidied and locked up, and was now hurrying back to her dormitory. She tried to be very quick as she doubted that Filch would allow her study habit as an excuse to be out past curfew if he caught her.

It was deadly quiet in the empty corridor with the students back in their common rooms or dormitories. A noise of breaking glass from a normally empty classroom therefore gave Hermione quite a start. She froze trying to concern if there were any other noises and what to do about it. Should she investigate? Who or what would be here in the dead of the night? What was going on? The next sound made her decision: something sounded like a suffering animal being strangled. Whatever was happening here did not sound good. Hermione tiptoed closer to the door of the classroom the sounds had come from. She could hear mumbling from the other side of the door, but could not make out any words until somebody shouted "Shut up". Students out here past curfew, maybe fighting, she had to see what was going on. Drawing her wand and taking a deep breath, Hermione opened the door quietly and peeked inside. The room was dark and in the moonlight from the windows she could only see one person, a boy, bent over a table, hiding his head between his arms, making the strangling sound again.

Hermione could not quite make out who it was until he raised his head from the table, moonlight shining on silver hair, and screamed "Shut up, shut up" again.

"Malfoy," Hermione gasped. He froze in his erect position with his hands on his head as if he was trying to squeeze something out of it. This gave her time to take him more in than she had before. He wore no robes and had discarded his school uniform down to his shirt, which was open and swaying with his movement.

"Granger," he sighed. "Of all people."

He turned around to face her. "What are you doing here?"

"I was on my way back to my common room when I heard … ." Hermione pulled in a deep breath. With his turning around she could see his shirt flipping open, baring his chest, and dark streaks running down and onto his arms. "Malfoy, what …?" Hermione stepped forward. "Is that blood? Lumos." Her wand's light flared up, illuminating half of the dark room.

"Stay where you are, Granger," he snarled. "Don't come any closer." He raised his wand toward her. Hermione ignored him. In the light of her wand she could see the dark red streaks shining and took a step forward. "What in the world did you do?"

"Granger," he warned.

She shuffled another step forward. "Did you get in a fight?"

"Stop," he yelled. Hermione froze, staring wide-eyed at him. "What happened?"

"Stay there," he threatened.

"But …," she tried.

"No. Sod off. I cut myself with the glass from the bottle, by accident I assure you, and besides, it's none of your business."

"But you're out past curfew. It's the middle of the night."

"Oh, are you going to take points of me, perfect Granger? Or rat me out to the teachers? And what about you? Aren't you out past curfew as well? Little midnight shag with one of your wonder boys, hm?" His cold grey eyes bore into hers.

"Shut up," Hermione admonished frowning. "That's disgusting."

She shuddered. "With Harry . Ugh. He is like a brother to me." She shuddered again just thinking about it. She did rather not mention Ron and hoped that Malfoy was too distracted to notice. She had rather different feelings about Ron, but that was none of Malfoy's business.

"So what? Incest, I hear, is quite fashionable in some families. And given the amount of redheads in that Weasley family …"

"Oh, come on, Malfoy, you want to tell me that your family traits did not require any inbreeding?" Hermione scoffed.

Malfoy fumed. "Shut your trap," he bellowed. "Do not insult my family, you mudblood. There is more purity in my family than you can ever dream of."

"Oh, sure, ferret-face, is that why you are cutting yourself? To spread your pure blood more widely? Looks like there is enough blood to go around. People as pale as you usually don't have enough for that."

Malfoy stepped closer, towering over her. With his movement came a whiff of something alcoholic. Great, thought Hermione, is he also drunk? Will he pass out in a minute? Although for now, it did not look like he was going to.

"Been admiring my aristocratic features, haven't you, Granger? Good to know that you are not immune to true beauty, although you will never have good taste. So, why don't you take along your …," he bend sideways to get a look of her behind, "… puny mudblood arse to your dormitory and we won't talk of this again." His mercury eyes shot cold fire to support his menace.

Hermione was not impressed and smirked. "Why would I do that, Malfoy? Don't you think that Professor McGonagall would give more credibility to my report that I was held up past curfew when I discovered you in an abandoned classroom, on the seventh floor I might add, and aren't your dungeons, well, in the dungeons, and you were covered in blood?" She had worked herself to a yell for the last part.

Malfoy, however, was equally unimpressed. "Not if I tell Snape that I was patrolling the seventh floor as a prefect duty, because I heard students plotting an illegal party with lots of alcohol and I wanted to ascertain that nobody came to any harm."

"And the blood?"

"I told you, I cut myself accidentally."

"Is that why you reek of alcohol as well?"

"Of course." Now it was Malfoy's turn to smirk.

"A likely story," Hermione scoffed.

"What do you think happened?"

"I wouldn't know. But I doubt that you can accidentally cut yourself all over your body."

Malfoy scowled. "Who cares what you believe? One charm and it's all healed and nobody the wiser. Your word is against mine."

Hermione growled. "Right, Malfoy, just how stupid do you think I am? Stop!" She held up her hand when he took a breath. "Don't answer that. So, I'll just leave you here, bleeding, moaning, and drunk and go about my own business, shall I?"

Malfoy's forehead relaxed the tiniest amount. "Yes, Granger, that's exactly what I want you to do."

Hermione chuckled. "Hmhm, nice try. Try again."

Malfoy growled. "What do you want, Granger?"

She examined her fingernails. This was her chance to confirm or reject Harry's suspicion that Malfoy was up to something. "Oh, you know, I'm just so curious. I want to know what you are doing up here, so far away from your housemates and your common room, all alone in the middle of the night, bleeding and moaning and pissed."

"Who says, I'm pissed?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I can smell, you know."

He snorted. "Curiosity killed the cat, you know."

"Being close to Harry will kill me anyway, one of these days. Voldemort or his Death Eaters will take care of that if they get me," she said nonchalantly.

That got his attention. "You say his name?"

"Sure, that is his name, is it not? Dumbledore says, fear of a name ..."

Malfoy laughed bitterly. "He doesn't need spreading additional fear of his name. He can spread fear quite nicely just so."

Hermione tilted her head. "Are you afraid of him? I thought you were his poster child."

Malfoy huffed. "I am a Malfoy, we are not afraid."

Hermione rolled her eyes again. "Right. Let me rephrase that. So, he does not roll out the red carpet for you?"

The silver haired boy snorted. "Hardly."

She smirked. "Well, I'm surprised. I thought he did and, your father being his right hand man, he had a special place in his cold heart for you."

Malfoy swayed where he stood. "Maybe you shouldn't think about things you know nothing about. Smartest witch her age, my foot. I would expect nothing else from you, though. Sticking your nose in other business."

"Hm, maybe Daddy doesn't have enough clout. Maybe, he makes you work and it's harder that you think, never having to have worked for anything in your life."

If possible, Malfoy's eyes turned even harder and colder. He swayed again.

"Granger, shut your petty mouth. You have no idea what you are talking about."

"Oh, but I seem to have hit a nerve. Something to do with Daddy, hm." She tapped her chin, considering.

"Let's see. Daddy …"

"Granger," he growled threateningly. It would have looked more threatening if he hadn't swayed more and slightly tipped backwards against the table he had been leaning on. Hermione's hand shot out to grab and steady him should he slip. However, Malfoy caught himself before he fell and slapped her hand away from his shirt. "Don't touch me, mudblood."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up. "You're joking, right? Why, you'd rather hit your head than let me touch you to keep you from falling? Not even your skin, but your clothes?"

"I would rather die if your help required touching me. I might as well since you cannot disinfect yourself enough to get rid of the contamination. I would not want to live with that."

Hermione pulled a face. "Ooh, Malfoy, I'm hurt. To think you have such strong negative emotions towards my touch. How can I possibly go on?" She swiped her forehead dramatically.

Against his will, Malfoy snorted because of her drama. "Why, Granger, I didn't think you had it in you." Then his face fell and he sacked a little. "Sarcasm does not suit you, though."

Hermione noticed his declining well-being. "Enough chit-chat, ferret. You better let me stop your bleeding or I can assure you that I will call a teacher." She raised her wand but before she could say a spell Malfoy interfered again.

"I don't need your help," he spat. "I can heal myself."

Hermione raised one eyebrow. "Indeed? Go on, then."

With an ice cold glare to her, Draco wiped his wand over his body with a quick incantation and the blood stopped welling. With a second swipe and a 'scourgify' he cleaned off the residue. Then, he steadied himself against the table.

"Alright," Hermione relaxed a little, "now, all that remains is to make sure that you get safely to your dormitory."

"Yes, Prefect Granger, and since I am also a Prefect I make sure I get myself to bed. No need to tuck me in, thank you very much," Malfoy sneered.

Hermione looked sceptical. "If it was that easy, then why didn't you go in the first place and before curfew?"

"None of your business," he snapped.

"A student out past curfew is my business, Malfoy," Hermione snapped back.

If possible, Malfoy's sneer deepened. "Granger, don't you think you are a little out of your league trying to get me to bed?"

Hermione looked shocked. "I … what…. What are you…. Urgh, no way." She was appalled.

"Bit late to back paddle now, hm?" Malfoy leered. "But don't worry, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that I would let you anywhere near my bed. Disgusting."

"Malfoy, please, stop before I start heaving. As if I wanted to get close to your pathetic, pure-blooded, perfidious, pale, puke-inducing …"

"Yeah, yeah, save it," Malfoy interrupted, becoming bored and tired of their pointless interlude. "As I said as if I would touch you with a broomstick." He let his head sink back. A few seconds passed and Malfoy looked bored. He stood and inspected his fingernails, not looking at Hermione. When after a few more seconds she still had not made to leave the classroom, he said: "Well, Granger, it's been no fun but don't let me keep you. You don't want to be caught out after curfew, wouldn't you?"

Hermione frowned. "What about you?"

He sneered. "That would be my problem, wouldn't it?"

She still looked sceptical. "You sure?"

Malfoy glared at her. "Yes, I'm sure. Shoo, Granger."

Hermione gave him one last glance, shrugged and turned to leave. It was indeed his problem if he wanted to be caught outside his dormitory in the middle of the night. She would not risk her (almost) clean record for him, of all people.

But before she could open the door they heard footsteps approaching. Hermione stopped and turned to look back at Malfoy, who looked just as shocked as she did but was still able to move. He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her down behind a desk, while Hermione extinguished the light of her wand with a whispered "Nox". She had landed on her bum behind the desk and was just able to pull up her knees before Malfoy had ducked down next to her.

Hermione tried to still her breathing and was grateful that Malfoy had reacted so quickly, saving her arse as well as his. She berated herself for having lingered so long. Who knew how long she would be stuck here now and with ferret-face of all people. Hm, ferret-face. Due to their positioning behind the desk she had a full view of his profile as he was on the outside of the desk closer to the windows and the moonlight shining in. It illuminated his hair so that it shone like a halo around his head, like a beacon in the night. She only hoped whoever was out there would not come in the classroom if they were quiet enough. She held her breath.

The footsteps had come closer and stopped in front of the door. Malfoy and Hermione both held their breath and did not move a muscle, hoping against hope that the person out there would find no reason to come in. To no avail. After a few seconds the door opened and somebody peeked inside. They still held their breath when they felt something cold sweep over them. A detection spell. Dang. Hermione bit her lip. What now?

"Who's there? Show yourself." Snape. Of all the teachers. She was doomed. He would put her in detention forever and have her stripped of her prefect title. And she couldn't even explain why she was here. She glanced at Malfoy, frowning. It was entirely his fault. He caught her glance and seemed to understand. He motioned to her to stay put and raised himself as if he had lounged behind the desk the whole time. "Professor?"

"Draco?"

Malfoy stood up entirely. "I'm sorry, Professor. What time is it?"

"It's past midnight, Draco. What are you doing here?" Hermione was impressed that Snape sounded almost kind. Why did he have to favour Malfoy so much? Although, if his favouritism would get her out of this predicament, she would never breathe another word against it.

Malfoy lowered his head. "I just wanted to be alone, to think."

Snape inhaled sharply. "And you couldn't have done that in your common room or dormitory? "

Malfoy looked up at Snape. "No, you can't be alone on Slytherin territory."

Snape looked at him piercingly and contemplated. "Hm. Did you work on your task?"

Malfoy stiffened.

"Ah," Snape said quietly and nodded. "I see."

He pondered looking at Draco for a few more seconds, and then said: "Nonetheless, it is way past curfew and if anybody else finds you here they will not be as lenient as I am with you. I better lead you back to your room."

Malfoy let his shoulders hang, the picture of a beaten person.

"Uncle Severus, if it is not too much to ask, would you mind giving me a few more minutes here? I promise I will go back then."

"What if somebody sees you?" Snape inquired sharply.

"Then I'll say I've been meeting with you on the Astronomy Tower and that I am on my way to bed. Will you confirm that?"

Snape looked at him, considering, then nodded. "Alright, Draco. If you promise..."

"I promise."

"Alright, then." He turned to leave. "And, Draco?"

"Yes, Uncle Severus?"

Snape looked back over his shoulder. "It cannot be as bad as you think. You can always come to me, you know. Talk things over, get help. You know that, don't you?"

Malfoy gave a thin smile. "Yes, I know, Uncle Severus."

Snape replied with the same thin smile and a sharp nod of the head. "Good night, Draco." Then he closed the door after he stepped out.

"Good night, Uncle Severus," Malfoy mumbled.

Hermione exhaled in relief. Malfoy had just saved her neck, as unbelievable as that was. She pushed herself up from the floor. Malfoy was facing away from her. "Uncle Severus?"

"He's my godfather."

"Oh." That explained the favouritism.

"Will you finally get out now? My arse is covered; you have no reason to be here anymore. Leave now."

Hermione hesitated. He looked utterly defeated, the way he had looked when she came into the room in the first place. "What task was he talking about?"

Malfoy growled. "I said before, I'll say it one more time. It's none of your fucking business. Get out now!"

Hermione shrunk back. It was none of her business but he looked so … so… so helpless. She just couldn't leave him alone. She tried again. "But..."

Malfoy put his handballs over his eyes, effectively hiding them. "Granger, what do you not understand about keeping your nose out? Aren't you supposed to be the smartest witch of our age? Seems to me that you cannot even grasp the simplest concept," he snapped.

She rolled her eyes. "I do understand but …"

"Then why are you still here?" Malfoy interrupted, strained.

"Hm, I don't know, I …"

"That was a rhetorical question. I don't really want to know, think about it on the way out. You heard me with Snape; I came here to be alone. Why can't you leave?"

"Why do you want to be alone so badly?"

"Why are you so terribly annoying? You are a nuisance, like mosquitoes. You distracted me there for a while, but now I would like to go back to being alone and able to think."

Hermione's instinct screamed at her to leave him before he snapped and hurt her. She had pushed him quite thoroughly. She knew that in spite of his cool demeanour and controlled behaviour he had a flaring temper that just needed the right buttons pushed to blow up fully. From their squabbles in the corridors she also knew that she was the right person to do just that. Staring at his fiercely annoyed face, she tried to decide whether to stay or go.

He made the decision for her when he whispered fiercely: "Go, Granger, just - go." He turned away from her and moved to the window where he put his elbows up on the ledge and his head in his hands.

Dismissed. Hermione felt anger boiling in her veins, but she tried to stay calm. Why did she even want to care? There would never be any kind of reward for caring for Draco Malfoy. Not that she was looking for rewards. She turned toward the door and made her way out of the room. When she opened the door she pivoted back one last time, consoling her indecisiveness, wanting to confirm that there was no need to care. Draco Malfoy still stood at the window, supporting his head apparently deep in thought.

When she turned to finally leave the room, she saw the shudder running through him. In the illumination of the moonlight it was so very obvious. She let the door snap close and remained very still. It took only a few seconds for Draco to let go of his control, now, that he thought himself alone again. His legs gave out beneath him and he slid down the wall to lie in a crumbled heap on the cold stone floor, facing away from the door. The sound that left his body was almost unearthly, a mix between a heave and a wail; the same sound Hermione had heard when she came investigating. She didn't hear him actually crying, but the distress was obvious none the less. She waited silently by the door, watching him from afar until he calmed a bit.

When she was sure he had exhausted his desperate outbreak Hermione walked over silently to where he laid and kneeled down next to him. She put her hand lightly on his shoulder and stroked it with her thumb. His body stiffened under her touch and she let out an angry sigh. He had no reason to trust her. For all he knew, she might run off and tell the entire school that he was crying at night in an empty classroom far away from his mates. But he should have known better. She was a Gryffindor, for Merlin's sake. Gryffindors did not betray people in need. They were a bit naïve that way. Hermione put her other hand on his head and felt for the first time the softness of his hair. She sighed inwardly: she wished she had that kind of silkiness instead of her stubborn strong curls. She let her hand glide through it.

"Draco," she whispered.

That got her a reaction. He turned and wrapped his long arms around her legs and pulled her closer so he could rest his head on her thighs. She held her breath and exhaled with relief, once he had settled on her lap. Then she continued her ministrations through his silky strands with both hands.

They didn't know why they allowed themselves to act so contrarily to their usual behaviour. Perhaps it was the fact that they were utterly alone in the middle of the night and nobody to witness their interaction. They were both as certain as an unbreakable vow that nobody would ever know what they shared that night. They knew they hated each other but perhaps … perhaps there was an underlying draw they would never admit to. And since they had already started behaving differently than usual and the earth hadn't opened up and swallowed them whole, they might as well continue and take what they could get. Nobody else needed to know.

After a while, he spoke softly: "What I tell you now cannot ever be repeated to anybody else, understood?"

Hermione breathed: "Yes."

Malfoy continued, equally quiet: "In the week before our return to Hogwarts, the Dark Lord came to our house; and since my father is imprisoned in Azkaban he ordered me to take my father's place. I don't have a choice or my mother's life will be forfeit."

Hermione stilled her hands, but left them resting on his head, wrapped in his hair. The words hung in the air between them and they did not dare to move. She knew that her next words would decide the outcome of the night. Merlin. She bit her lips.

After a few more seconds, Malfoy spoke again: "It is oddly comforting with your hands lying on my head." He moved his arms a little to embrace her more. She could feel the warmth of his hands on her lower back.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, lowering her head over his. Her long curly hair fell forward, brushing against Malfoy's shoulder. He grabbed one hanging strand and pulled it straight. She could feel the coolness on her back where his warm hand had lain.

"What are you sorry for?" he murmured.

Hermione took a deep breath. This was it. What she said now was important. "I'm sorry for the duress you are under."

He let go of her lock. "Hm"

"And I'm sorry if I misjudged you. Because obviously, if becoming a Death Eater causes you distress, then you don't agree with their dogma."

He snorted, and then sat up, supporting himself on his hands. "Do you know, Granger, what Death Eaters do?"

"You mean besides attacking the non-followers of Voldemort?" Hermione asked rhetorically.

Draco looked at her. Hermione held his gaze and waited for him to continue.

"Do you know what it entails to eradicate a particular group of people?"

"Yes," Hermione whispered. There were events like that in regular human history, one of them fairly recently, like sixty years ago.

"Do you have any idea of what goes on during those so called Death Eater "meetings"?" He looked away. "Rape and torture and murder and raucousness and glee and leering and jubilation at the violation of innocent people. Supposedly inferior people. Muggles and Muggleborns not worthy of the air they breathe." His voice broke. "It has nothing to do with showing superiority, as in being better, smarter, less animalistic."

Hermione was shock still. "How do you know?" she breathed.

"I heard my father talking to his "friends" and it made me sick just listening."

He looked back to her. "If I felt like throwing up when I only listened to their tales, how do you think I will react when I actually have to be there and maybe even participate? How will I be able to stand actually raping an innocent girl to prove my worth? And what if I refuse? What will they do if I refuse to take part in such an atrocity?" He started shaking again.

She had to help him snap out of his despair. Anger was the quickest way. "What, Malfoy? Are you telling me that you don't enjoy using your power on a girl to sleep with her?" she riled him up.

His head whipped up. In his rising anger, he realized the position he was in and he moved to rectify it. He sat up across from Hermione, scowling at her. Mission accomplished, she thought as she faced the cold anger in his eyes.

"I may be many things, Granger, but I never had to force myself on a girl. I use my power to persuade a girl and if that is not enough, then so be it, and it's her miss. There are plenty of girls who really like to share my bed; I don't have to resort to force. I am a Malfoy, the connection and my looks are usually more than plenty persuasion."

"Hm," she mused, trying to hide her smile by looking at the floor. "I'm sure you would think so."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

She looked back at his sceptical mien. "Wouldn't you ever want a girl wanting you, not because you are a Malfoy, not because of what your name means, the money, the connection, the standing in society, but because of who you are, because of the attributes that make your person?"

Malfoy held her gaze. "I don't think that can be separated."

"Because you don't want it to be."

"No, because it can't be."

"Why not?"

"Because I am what I am. I am a Malfoy, rich, with connections, pureblooded with high standing in society. Every girl wanting to be with me, sees that and whether it is her reason or her spite, this is what I am."

Hermione exhaled exasperatedly. "But you could be so much more."

Malfoy looked at her in bewilderment. "Like what?"

Hermione hesitated. She was near to disclosing her own private fantasies about her perfect date and the male specimen in front of her fit her profile almost perfectly. If he weren't who he was, that was.

"Well?"

"Well, you could be entertaining and charming and well-read and suave and caring and interesting to talk to." Like you are right now, Hermione continued in her head, except for the despair part. Like you are whenever we spar verbally. Entertaining and interesting at the very least. A challenger.

He smirked. "That I am anyway, with a girl who goes out with me. Plus some other… skills I have."

Hermione rolled her eyes once more. "Yes, those other skills are quite infamous. But you could be known primarily for being an interesting man to be with and not being a Malfoy first and the Slytherin slut foremost."

His smirk deepened and he leaned forward on his knees, ignoring the slight. "Infamous skills, hm? Even to you?"

Hermione grimaced. "Ugh, again. Get real, Malfoy."

"I think you just disclosed something that you didn't want me to see." He leaned back again and openly grinned.

Hermione kept herself in check and looked straight at him, fanning herself with her hand. "Yes, Malfoy, I am all hot and bothered by your presence and I usually get off dreaming about a pureblooded bigot who sneers at me and insults me every chance he gets and will likely treat me like vermin after he got into my knickers."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

She couldn't help but chuckle a little. Malfoy grinned back.

But after a few moments, they remembered why they were together in that room and the grins slid off their faces. Malfoy distanced himself a little by changing his position and leaning back against a desk. Hermione stayed where she was, she just slipped a little over to free her knees, which started to tell her to move.

Malfoy gazed toward the window and the moonlight streaming in. Hermione could see his profile again and discern that his formerly pointy features had somewhat matured over the years since she'd known him. She heard all the rumours of his sexual prowess and, sharing a dorm with Parvati and Lavender, she could hear them plotting how they would go about bedding the most handsome boys in school, Malfoy amongst them. It was a shame, really, that the most handsome and interesting boys resided in Slytherin. She loved Harry and Ron more than one could imagine, but Harry really was like a brother to her. And even if she harboured a fancy for Ron, she could not imagine sleeping with him anytime soon. The boys in Gryffindor were too close to home, like house brothers. And even though one could have interesting conversations with Ravenclaws due to their intellect, some of them had been aligned with Ginny; and the others were friends with Ginny's ex-boyfriends, making for an awkward situation. There were no Hufflepuffs she could ever be interested in. That left Malfoy, Zabini and Nott, all of them pureblooded Death Eater sons, smart and attractive but unavailable to her; which was totally fine with her. She didn't need to lose her virginity while in school. She was going to go on to College and find a nice educated interesting fellow student when the opportunity came. She was in no hurry.

"Like what you see, Granger?" a snarl interrupted her thoughts.

She shrugged. "Sure." He turned his face towards her, raising his eyebrows. "But I wouldn't give up my convictions for an attraction."

His face darkened. "You can say that because you can choose."

She stared back at him. "So can you."

He held her stare. "Not with as little consequences as you can."

She kept her stare up. "True."

He waited, knowing she wasn't finished. "What would you actually lose?"

He snorted. "Only my money, status, my name, my family. I would be disinherited, banished, never see my mother again. I would be on the run from the Dark Lord and his minions and never, ever be safe. They would do unspeakable things to me if I was ever captured. Unending agony."

"You could be protected if you chose to run. But you choose a life in misery to avoid losing your wealth and connections?"

He shifted his gaze away. "There would only be moments of misery."

"No, Draco, that's where you're wrong. These 'moments of misery' will haunt you forever; they will leak into your everyday life, into every thought, into every dream. You will never be free of it and you will never get used to it. You will suffer."

"What do you want me to do?" he snapped at her.

Hermione sighed. It was difficult. "I don't want you to do anything. It's not my life. But you need to consider if keeping your wealth and status is worth losing your soul in the process. And the light side may well win in the end and where will that leave you?"

He scoffed. "Losing my soul?"

Hermione nodded. "Why do you think you suffered so much thinking about what it means to become a Death Eater? When you were wailing in this very room a short while ago?"

His heated glare met her. "I was not wailing."

Hermione shrugged again. "Call it what you like."

With an angry noise, he leaned his head back looking out the window again. Hermione waited. There was nothing to say in the moment. After a minute he sighed: "I'm tired."

"Well, it is quite late …."

"No, Granger. I'm tired of constantly having to cater to my father's whims. He decides what books I read to educate myself, what clothes I wear to declare my status, what broom I ride to show our wealth, or his wealth I should say. I disappoint him because I am always the second best, not the best. Second after you in class, second after Potter as a seeker. My father wasn't the best in anything either, but I have to be. We follow a halfblooded hypocrite in cleansing the world of people with magic that does not come from a truly pureblooded union and if and when we are done with it there will be nobody left but us few and we will die out because we cannot uphold our magical heritage. I will have to marry a pureblooded witch at one point to procreate and it doesn't matter if we love each other or not. And why am I telling you all this?" he ended with a furious swipe in the air.

Hermione smiled. "Because I listen and I don't judge you. Not yet at least."

He looked at her for a moment, and then smiled a tired half-smile back. "True, that." He let his head fall on his knees.

"I am just so tired of living my life for him, of living his life. What if I want to marry for love? What if I want to achieve something other in life besides lording over the Malfoy estates?" He let his sentence trail away.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "There is more than one estate to the Malfoy name?"

He grinned against his will. "Oh, yes, there are several estates all over the world."

She smiled slyly. "What about the love part?"

His face darkened. "I don't know about that, but I want to have a choice."

Hermione looked bewildered. "You don't know if you can love?" she asked quietly.

Malfoy looked away again. "No"

Hermione didn't let her eyes leave him. "How can you not know?"

He looked back to her and she bit back a gasp at the look in his eyes: pewter grey and maniacally wild. So much pain. She wanted to hug him. "How can I know? My parents married for the pureblood union they would create and even though they respect, I know they don't love each other. They have separate bedrooms and spent their nights wherever and with whomever they like. You touching my head there was one of the softest caresses I've ever received in all my life from anybody other than my mother. Contrary to popular believe, my father didn't torture me habitually, but indifference and high expectations without the pride for achievements can go a long way in making someone feel like a constant disappointment."

Hermione didn't know what was worse; the words he was saying or the way he was saying them so detachedly. Now she really needed to hug him, even if he ripped her limps off. She shifted back to her knees and crawled over the short distance. He still looked out the window and didn't notice how close she had gotten before she kneeled between his legs and put her hands to both sides of his face. He tried to shake his head free. "Get off, Granger. Just because I said your touch was soft doesn't mean I want it."

But Hermione was having none of that. She put her hands more firmly on his face, despite his head shaking. When he put his hands over hers to pull them off, she stilled his head. "Malfoy," she urged. He stilled but tried not to look at her. "Draco, look at me."

Almost as if against his will, he slowly turned his head to her until their eyes connected. "What?" he snarled. She kept her look on him. "You can take my touch. I'm giving it to you. I don't want anything in return. And nobody needs to know."

He looked back. She could see the fight in his grey stormy eyes if he should shake her off or if he could accept the tempting offer. "Take it," she urged again.

And he surrendered. Be it for a part of his overall weakness this particular night or the fact that she did for him what nobody had done before, he closed his eyes and stopped struggling. She pulled him to her front and embraced his shoulders. He leaned his forehead on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist, taking deep gulps of breath and sank into her embrace. It was sensual and warm but entirely asexual, even though her body was soft under his touch and she smelt good, like roses. It was more like a mother's or a sister's embrace, freely given, unconditional. She didn't want any pleasure from him or gifts or connections to the Malfoy name and status. She didn't even want to gain any leverage in their constant fighting, Slytherin versus Gryffindor. She didn't cling to him like the other girls who wanted to be associated with him, like Pansy. All she wanted to do was give him comfort. And it felt soothing like a hot chocolate on a cold winter night. Sweet and warm. And so Draco Malfoy accepted for the first time in his life the caress of a girl or woman, without calculating what benefits she could gain from it and how to control that.

They remained for a few minutes until his breathing calmed. Then she leaned back to be able to look in his face. "Better?" The shortest jerk of his head indicated his assent. His head had slid down from her shoulder with her pulling back and he now rested the side of his face over her collarbone.

When he spoke she felt his warm breath blowing over her throat, and it felt very cosy: "Your heart beats like any other. Your body feels like any other girl's body and you are just as warm. You even smell good."

Hermione pushed him a little away. Even though he sounded as if he had taken a break from reality, he would not take advantage of the situation. Besides, if he had kept his ear over her heart, he would have noticed how its frequency increased at his almost compliments and the intimacy of their position. That would not do. Instead she looked smugly at him when he questioningly looked at her, and said: "And you only notice that now?"

He frowned over the loss of body contact but did not initiate coming closer again. Hermione was glad in a way. This could have become embarrassing. "Well, I've never been this close to you before. How was I to know? Mudbloods are supposed to be slimy and cold. And dirty. Like toads. Although, .." he lowered his head, looking at the now increased space between them, "I should have known better with your constant higher grades in class and Potter's seeking skills that there is no way, that purebloodedness guarantees excellency just on its own and that disregarding everybody else was just wrong." When he moved his face to the window she could see that he looked angry again.

Hermione sighed and resisted the urge to stroke his face, to smooth the angry lines. They were not friends, at least not yet. "I wished I could take some of your pain," she said lightly.

His head whipped around as if slapped. "What? Why would you do that?"

She shrugged. "I see you suffer and it pains me anyway, so if I can lighten the burden…" She let it trail off.

"Granger, are you insane? Why would you take anybody else's pain?"

She shrugged again. "Because I can."

Malfoy looked at her as if she had just grown a second head. And a green and purple one at that. "So you can kill yourself, but you would never do that. I hope at least."

She smiled uncertainly. "No, I would not kill myself because there are so many people I would hurt with such an act. My parents, my family, Harry, Ron, Ginny… That's what I'm saying; I couldn't do that because I would hurt them. But if I could take away some pain to diminish your hurt, I would do that." She looked at him expectantly.

He shook his head. "I don't see it. Is that a Gryffindor trait or something? Be a martyr for somebody else whenever you can? Sacrifice yourself when you have a chance?"

She grinned. "Maybe."

He frowned at her. "Well, since you can't take my pain this entire train of conversation is redundant."

She sighed. "I know. I just wished I could."

He shook his head again. "And again, I think you are insane."

She looked exasperated. "But imagine what you could do with a little less pain on your shoulders. You could invest all that extra energy in thinking hard and finding a solution to your problem."

"There is no solution. I just have to do it."

She shrunk back. "You would go through all the misery and repulsion that comes with being a Death Eater and do whatever atrocious thing he asks you to do, to stay in the good graces of Voldemort and your father and the other Death Eaters?" she shrieked.

"What else can I do?" he yelled. "I'll be tortured to death if I don't."

Hermione blinked. "Wait, so you'll be disinherited and tortured if you refused and the same if you came to us for help? And if you do what Voldemort wants you to do to "show your worth", you'll be repulsed by yourself and the act, not to mention helping in the misery or torture and death of another human being." She inhaled sharply. "That's a fucked-up situation if I ever saw one."

He had flinched when she had said Voldemort's name but now glared at her. "That's what I said, Granger, weren't you listening? And don't swear. You're a girl."

She smirked. "Oh, and girls can't swear? Parkinson never swears? And you haven't heard anything yet. I had some coach drivers in my family. I know some succulent swear words that would make your ears fall off."

Malfoy gawked, very un-Malfoy like. This was Hermione Granger, goody-two-shoes and Gryffindor prude, Know-it-all and McGonagall's favourite, right? Right?

Her voice brought him back to focus. "Anyway, there is pain and misery wherever you turn. And no way to save somebody else."

"Whoever it is, will never be saved. If I don't do it, somebody else will."

"But then at least, you won't be responsible."

"No, but maybe I can prevent the worst."

"Could you?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I can pretend and claim the victim afterwards and set her free. Maybe I can at least save her life. (A/N: credit to AkashaTheKitty's "Master" for the idea) And maybe not hurt her too much."

"Are we truly discussing techniques of how to rape or torture a girl without causing too much harm?"

"No, Granger, I believe we are discussing how to save my hide and my sanity and maybe save a girl's life, too."

"Maybe you should speak to Snape about that."

"Professor Snape, Granger. For you, at least. And yes, maybe I should. But either way, they will want me to do something I don't want to do at one of these revels. Rape, torture, murder, something along those line and I can't. I'm not ready for this. I don't know if I ever will be."

"Then come to our side, Draco. Otherwise, this will be your future. One way or the other."

Draco put his head in his hand and spoke through them. "If only I knew how to do that without sacrificing my own life. I can't think clearly with the thoughts of the meeting on my mind."

"Well, take them out. Put them in a pensieve."

"I don't have a pensieve. Those things don't come cheap, you know."

"Oh, so? You're telling me that there are some expensive things that you don't have? As a Malfoy, I mean?"

'Shut up, you. I could if I wanted to I just don't have one now."

"Professor Dumbledore has one. Harry told me."

Malfoy went very still. "I don't know if I want to involve him just yet."

"Hm. That puts us at an impasse. What then?"

Malfoy looked at her shrewdly. "Maybe I could transfer them to you?" Hermione blanched. "What, are you scared, Granger?"

"N..no, it's just … would you trust your thoughts and memories to me? That is highly advanced magic, what if we can't put them back? What if something goes wrong and you damage my brain?" she babbled.

Malfoy scoffed. "I knew you weren't serious with really wanting to help me. You are out to save your hide just as much as I am, and ease your guilt on top of it."

"Oh, yeah? Well, do you know how to extract thoughts from your mind?"

Malfoy sneered. "Of course, I do."

"Well, then, do it."

"What about, "what if we can't take them back out?" he imitated a whiny voice.

"We'll worry about that later, won't we? If you can even do it, that is. Which I doubt."

"Just watch, little girl. That's the difference between learning everything from books and being born to it. I have powers you can only dream off."

Hermione was incensed. How dared he? There was nothing she couldn't do. Except maybe piss a straight horizontal line a feet away from her, and who needed that? Conceited bastard. "Bring it on, boy."

Malfoy sneered in response, and then concentrated on pulling strands of thoughts from his mind. Hermione could see the silver wisps coming away with his wand. He moved them toward her head and tried to let them sink into her cranium but they slipped of his wand, lingered a little in the air between them, then moved back toward his head and sank back in. Malfoy groaned and shook when the silver strand had vanished in his hair. He slumped under the onslaught on his mind.

"Malfoy" Hermione tried to grab him before he could crash to the floor and injure himself. She shook her head. Since when did she care so much if Malfoy hurt?

He leaned into her to catch his fall and exhaled forcefully. "That was viciously real."

"What thought did you extract?"

Malfoy looked down embarrassedly. He didn't want to look into her eyes. "My imagination of how the meeting would look like based on the stories I heard. They are the worst."

Hermione puffed out some air. That would be painful to relive. Poor Draco.

Wait a minute. One could extract thoughts and put them in a receptacle but not in someone else's head. With Legilimency one could read someone else's thoughts but not extract them, with Occlumency one could close of the mind to all intrusions. There had to be a way to transfer thoughts, memories or feelings to another person. Like a magical bridge into the other mind.

"Malfoy?"

"Hm?"

"Is there a way to create something like a magical bridge into someone else's mind to transfer thoughts or memories?"

"Not that I know of."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"You're screwed."

"I know."

"Shit." Hermione said again. Malfoy only sighed. Then he became thoughtful.

"Hm, you know?" He kept thinking.

"What is it?" Hermione prodded.

"Were you serious with taking some pain from me?"

Hermione frowned. What was he on about now? "Hm, what do you mean?"

"You said if you could you would take some of my pain."

"Malfoy, we just figured out that you cannot even transfer thoughts into another brain. What makes you think ….?"

"You know, there is a binding spell for married couples. To ensure that the husband knows if his wife has any unfaithful thoughts, they used to put this spell on the wife after exchanging vows. Sometimes it was woven into the ring, sometimes into another piece of jewellery which was fastened to the wife and could not be removed except by the husband. Sometimes it had a corresponding piece of jewellery on the husband, so they could read their thoughts back and forth."  
>"That's sounds very old-fashioned."<p>

"Well, I don't think, it has happened in the last hundred years but it is still working. We have some pieces like that at the Manor. They've been in Malfoy hands for centuries."

"It sounds like a means to enslave the woman and make sure that she does not cuckold the Malfoy husband."

"Somewhat like that, yeah. But it made the exchange of thoughts possible."

"So, you want me to bind myself to you, so I can take your thoughts? Thanks, Malfoy, I'm flattered, but no, thanks. It sounds like a marriage is involved somewhere there and I for one feel not like marrying you or anything. I thought we had made that clear with the issue of not wanting to bed each other." She grimaced.

Malfoy sneered. "Far be it from me to marry you." He shuddered. "You've been bearable for company tonight, but that's as far as I can take it. Tomorrow we'll go back to hating each other, agreed?"

Hermione looked thoughtful. Did she really have to go back to being enemies with Malfoy? Apparently so. One night of talking under obscure circumstances didn't make them friends. And being seen in her company was dangerous for Draco. Even if he had wanted to; which apparently he didn't.

"Agreed?" he pressed with raised eyebrows.

"Agreed." Hermione sighed. "But I would appreciate if you could abstain from calling me the M-word."

Malfoy sighed likewise. "Alright, I can try at least, for the remainder of school. I can't promise you anything. And then we won't see each other again anyway, given how we move in different circles in life."

She snorted. "I wouldn't bet on it. You may run into me in the ministry as I will surely secure a position there and you will surely try to intervene there like your father does now."

"Really, now, Granger. What do you take me for?" he snarled. "I wouldn't call you the M-word in the middle of the ministry, now, would I?"

"I'll take your word for it," she mumbled, barely audible.

He snorted. "What I meant with the binding spell bit was that there is magic to exchange thoughts. If we tweaked it a little…"

"But Malfoy, it's again a "just listening in" on thoughts, not a real transfer."

"Well, then, you come up with something."

"Hm." She bit her lip. They remained quiet for five minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Hermione admitted: "I can't think of anything useful. I need to see the library for some research."

Malfoy kept staring straight ahead but smiled a little. "Why am I not surprised that you say that?"

Hermione grinned: "Because I always go to the library. And meet you there. It's not that you don't do your homework, you just don't brag about it."

Malfoy snorted again.

She became quiet again. "Anyway, I don't think we can find a solution tonight. But we can keep looking."

Malfoy lowered his head to his knees and spoke through his legs: "Granger, I don't need your help. We got into a discussion here, but I am not going to associate with you from now on. I still don't like you and I don't need your coddling. And I will not hold back the next time we'll insult each other as usual."

Hermione felt cold and overtired and a little sad. It wasn't that she had expected to come out of this night as Malfoy's next best friend. Not even an acquaintance. But she had thought that their opposition had softened a little, since they had talked as normal fellow students. She didn't like him either, much, but she would have difficulties to go back to being vicious enemies throwing hurtful insults at each other, when it was obvious that he was also some kind of a pawn in this fucked-up adult game of war and power. All she could say therefore was a tired: "Right, Malfoy, I'll let you be for now. See that you don't stay much longer up here. It has to be going on two in the morning."

With that, she got up and finally made her way to the door. She opened it, but before she could step through, his voice stopped her.

"Granger, if anything that happened in this room tonight ever gets out, I'll hunt you down."

She snorted and turned to send him one of her glares. "Malfoy, the weakness lies not in wanting to be cuddled every once in a while. Every human being needs human touch. It's essential. The weakness lies in behaving like a cold snake, pretending not to need it, because one is not able to deal with the need of closeness." Then she turned and left.

And Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince and cold snake extraordinaire, let his head sink on his knees again and despite his despair he had to smile because he let the bushy-haired Gryffindor have the last word. And a good one at that. Damn, she was right. He had to fix that.

.

DMHGDMHGDMHG

.

**Hermione's After-Thoughts**:

I was confused to no end; and believe me, that was a very uncomfortable state for me to be in. I couldn't wrap my head around Draco Malfoy being distressed over a task set by Voldemort, of becoming a Death Eater, of having sensibilities, of being human and not just cruel. In that one talk, Malfoy's personality had taken on dimensions that I had never seen before; and I didn't know what to do with that knowledge. I didn't even know if I wanted to do something with it. And then Harry's constant suspicions about Malfoy's plans he overheard on the train, nagging me, sent me into a right state.

Well, I knew then, I knew Harry had a reason to be suspicious, but I couldn't tell him the truth. You may rightfully ask if I had my loyalties straight. But I couldn't see what good it would have done to confirm to Harry that Malfoy had been put under pressure to do something for Voldemort and make it known to all. Not that Harry was gossiping. But he would have gone and tried to convince Dumbledore or simply warn other people.

There was no love lost between Malfoy and me. You don't just simply forget the hurts and insults of five previous years. But I understood better after that night that he was in misery wherever he turned and he was just a human sixteen-year-old. It just felt that it was too dangerous for Malfoy to tell anybody what I knew about him, and I had hopes that Dumbledore was as omniscient as ever and knew already.

So I just kept quiet and observed and waited for the events to unfold.

.

DMHGDMHGDMHG

.

**Draco's After-Thoughts**:

What a start of the school year. I had still felt good on the train ride, bragging to my friends of being raised in the Dark Lords esteem. I had to explain to them somehow that I was going to be missing frequently, so they wouldn't be suspicious and follow me. There is nothing worse than a nosy Slytherin. The blackmail material that they collected over the years would fill the legendary libraries of Alexandria.

But then it took a turn for the worse. Just my luck that Potter outsmarted me in Potions. I still don't know what happened then. When had he ever been such a talent in Potions? I was surprised that he even managed an OWL result high enough to make it into NEWT potions while being taught by Snape. And then he won the Felix Felicis. Must have been his lucky day. Twice.

And then being discovered by Granger in the middle of the night when I was at my most vulnerable, realizing what being a Death Eater meant; after I had taken my first shot at my task and realized it was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be. I became aware that it quite possibly would take months to fix. And now I had an unwanted accessory. I had a feeling, though, that she wouldn't blab. Her Gryffindor honour code - at this point I snorted to myself - would likely forbid that she exposed a fellow student in distress. Gryffindors were such wimps. I was surprised though that that particular Gryffindor body felt very firm, nice and warm under my embrace. Being the Gryffindor (and school) prude who did not engage at all in inter-house unity (not in that way at least) I would have never guessed that she felt so … female. Don't get me wrong: I still hated her with a passion for belonging to Potter, who had rejected me on my first offer of friendship. I hadn't done that calculatingly, offering my friendship. I had seriously wanted to get to know the Boy-who-lived better. That was before he became a bloody Gryffindor.

I had an inkling though, after that night, that the tide was turning for me. Hate after all is not much more but the fear of love rejected, the want to belong and knowing not to be able to. Isn't it interesting that you always hate the most what you would have liked for yourself? Something you would have liked but cannot have and would never admit that you wanted it? I was under immense pressure that year but even my sixteen-year-old self knew that I wanted to belong to something better than Voldemort's hordes of minions and brutal strategists for more power.

I had strong hopes that the year was going to improve somewhat despite the pressure I was under. Pansy certainly offered some distraction and knowing that I was in the Dark Lords confidence made some other girls more willing, too. In that regard, life was good for a teenage boy.

.  
>-<p>

_._

_A/N: Credits go to AkashaTheKitty for her "Bracelet" story for giving me the idea of jewellery connected by magic._

_Dear readers:_

_The first review that I received for this story remarked that there were some grammatical errors (thank you, rosiflower, it was amongst your praise, I saw that, too). I don't mind that at all, I want you to tell me what you think, especially if something rubs you the wrong way. It lead me to read my chapter on its fanfiction site as well and made me realize that it reads totally different there than in its Word file (yes, I discovered the Preview function now). And it shows on its fanfiction site that English is not my first language (dang)._

_Three things to that:_

_First: I don't have a Beta. If there is anybody out there who would be willing to look my story over before its publication I would really appreciate it._

_Second: I realize that I am too impatient a writer. I believe I want to squeeze too much into one sentence. As an explanation: my stories run like a mini movie in front of my inner eye and I have to bring the visual moving pictures in a written form. Not only does it run very fast and writing goes very slow but also, many details that you see in a movie and register without paying extra attention to it, need an extra description in written word and I become very irritated with it. That will be part of my learning process. I do appreciate all your reviews for that reason._

_Third: I am no Bex-chan or RZZMG or any other writer in the higher spheres there. I will have a heck of a lot to learn about writing fiction (very fast, see the impatience issue). This is my first story that needed development; that I couldn't write from the top of my head (like I did After the Wedding Night). I thought long and hard on how to fit certain ideas in the story, wrote, deleted, rewrote and so on. It has already taken months instead of weeks because it evolved from an idea (a visual one, Hermione, Draco, lots of magic, flashes and bangs, you get the idea). I want to finish it. I know what else is going to happen and where they will be in the end. I have to get that out before I can go back and re-edit. Please, continue to send me all your reviews (critics and praises alike) and I'll work them in when I have time to edit. I want to make this story good but I also want to get it out before somebody else does. It is only a matter of time before somebody else has the same idea. We are all way too involved with our favourite characters (that don't belong to us, I know, I know)._

_So, bear with me, it will not always be the best English but I want to drive the story forward. I know what I want to say but I will not always have the best way of writing it. Very apparently, there is a huge difference between speaking English (well) and writing fiction in English. _

_Thanks for reading _

_M_


	3. What came next

_Alright, my dears, here is the next instalment._

_Enjoy, and as usual, let me know what you think._

_M_

DMHGDMHGSMHGDMHGDMHG

**3. What came next**

Hermione did not see much of Draco Malfoy in the following weeks and that was totally fine with her. She saw him during the classes that they shared and briefly at mealtimes but he was always withdrawn and distracted and was never seen anywhere else. She wondered what he did that took up so much time or if he just withdrew wanting to be alone with his thoughts. And then Harry's constant niggling about what Malfoy was up to.

Then came the day of the Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor at the end of October and Malfoy did not play as seeker for his team. Hermione was distracted by the circumstances of Ron being so depressed that he could hardly play and Harry doing the trick with the Felix Felicis. She therefore did not pay much attention to the fact that Malfoy was not playing. But after she had found Ron snogging Lavender as if his life depended on it and after she left Harry and Ron in the classroom, setting the birds on Ron, he managed to get her attention back.

She found herself in a window niche overlooking the Forbidden Forest, solemnly thinking about the boys in her life. She was so deep in thought that she did not hear another person approaching until said person addressed her quietly.

"Granger."

She startled but didn't turn her head toward him. He did not need to see her tear stained cheeks.

"Malfoy", she acknowledged him equally quiet.

He moved a step closer. "What's a mudblood doing here alone so late at night, especially after her team miraculously won the Quidditch match? Scarhead saved the day again."

She still did not look at him. "You are one to talk. Where were you? Why were you not playing? You are obviously not injured."

He sneered. "Still the same none of your business as usual. Give it up, mudblood."

She shook her head. "Didn't we agree that you did not want to call me the M-word anymore?"

He frowned. "Did we? Maybe we did. What's the matter with you today, headstrong Granger having sensibilities?"

Hermione let her head drop toward her raised knees. "None of your business, Malfoy," she reproached him quietly.

"Ah, role reversal today. So, today, it's you wanting to be alone with your thoughts and me inquiring persistently - because a Malfoy doesn't nag - until I find out what's bugging you. And you won't get me to leave either because you look almost ready to throw yourself out of this window. And don't we all want to be a responsible prefect? The only difference will be that I will not keep it a secret, I'll use the information as I see fit. Unlike you loyal Gryffindors. So, what got you in such a tizzy?"

Hermione simply shook her head again, not trusting her voice to answer properly.

"Don't want to say it? Hm, let's see. One thing that could have Granger so low would be a fight with the wonder boys. Correct?"

Hermione snorted. "Not really", then she bit her lips. Did she actually want Malfoy to find out how pathetically she wanted for Ron to confess his love for her? Especially the pathetic part as Ron was not bloody likely to do any such thing any bloody time soon? Because giving Malfoy little hints would be the best way to help him find out. Just as she did now. Stupid emotions.

"Not a fight? Hm, they won the match," here he sounded slightly bitter but mostly tired, "and they are celebrating hard. Maybe too hard? Has perfect prissy Granger been put in her place because she wanted them to be reasonable in celebrating?" Hermione swallowed: if only it was that simple. She turned her head more to the window and with her movement, light reflected from the tear stains on her cheeks.

"No, hm? What's that, tears? Hermione Granger is crying? Something emotional then. Oh, I know. The Weasel has been snogging somebody else for celebration." Hermione's head whipped around, staring at Draco Malfoy the first time since he arrived. His face was shadowed from the torchlight behind him but she could feel the smirk on his face. He sniggered.

"Bingo. Who was it? The Brown bird?"

Hermione's eyes widened. "How …?"

"How do I know?" he interrupted, smirking again. "I can see, you know. Brown has been making cow eyes at the Weasel and dead bolt looks at you since the start of the year. She was going to take any opportunity to steal him out of your grip."

Hermione just stared at him. Did the entire school know? Had she been the only one too oblivious to see while she had been waiting for Ron to notice her attachment to him? And how could Lavender do that to her? She thought they had been, if not friends, at least girls who shared a dormitory and confided boy talk to each other. Big mistake it seemed.

Malfoy had moved next to Hermione and was looking past her out the window. He continued: "And apparently, she succeeded; because the Granger prude wouldn't let the Weasel in her knickers." He turned his head to look at her. In the soft light of the torch from one side and the moon from the other, his mercurial eyes seemed almost soft.

Hermione held his gaze for a minute, searching them. She appreciated the sobering company of the Slytherin boy because pity would have really done her no good at the moment. But the despair of losing Ron to a girl she never thought to protect herself against was still clutching her chest and made breathing deeply difficult and tears quelling easily. It didn't feel right to put Ron down either for choosing the easy way. She knew she would never be an easy choice of a girlfriend. She turned her head to look out the window again. There was some solace in the vastness of the dark Forbidden Forest.

"What do you know about love?" she challenged sotto voce.

He smirked, following her gaze out the window. "Maybe not much. But I know about covetousness. And I know that you can covet something that's exactly wrong for you." He turned away and before taking the steps toward his destination, he added his last thoughts: "It would be so typical for a Gryffindor to lower you to the level of the Weasel out of loyalty. You couldn't become any lower than that. Pathetic."

He had taken a few steps already when he heard her reply: "Ron has qualities that you will never know."

He snorted: "Undoubtly." and made his way into the dark hallways of the castle.

** DMHGDMHGDMHG**

**Draco's POV:**

He had regretted it. If anything gave him real pleasure in life it was playing Quidditch. Even if it was by losing against Potty the wonder boy. But the opportunity had been too good to give up. Everybody out in the Quidditch stands, nobody watching him or his whereabouts, he could make real progress with his work.

But it wasn't meant to be. He had made no progress whatsoever and he regretted that he had not at least taken the pleasure of playing; soaring through the sky on his superb broom, wind whipping through his hair and in his face, tearing at his clothes, shaking his body. It was always exciting to do that, sensual even.

And of course, they had lost. Well, at least this time, he had not to take the blame. Harper took the brunt of it. But he could not deny that his fellow Slytherins were looking at him sideways and he could see in their eyes that they were wondering, if this time if he had played they might have finally triumphed over the stupid lions.

If they only knew. If they knew that as soon as he fixed that stupid cabinet and the Dark Lord's faithful came into the school, who won Quidditch wouldn't count one tiny bit anymore.

He had been walking the upper levels of the school, far away enough from the Room of Requirement to not be tempted to work some more and far away enough from his common room to not encounter any Slytherins. He had not been worried about meeting any Gryffindors; surely they had enough celebrating to do in their own common room.

He had been surprised therefore, that he did encounter a sole Gryffindor in a quiet niche, off the trodden path, up on the seventh floor. He had been even more surprised that she seemed in no celebratory mood at all. She had been on his mind more than usual lately since their encounter in the empty classroom. He couldn't quite put his finger on the reason why, but he had felt appalled and enthralled at the same time because of her obstinacy to leave him that night. As much as it appalled him that a muggleborn could capture his attention so much, he had felt compelled to talk to her that night; and to let her touch him. And it had felt good. Ever since, he had thought at times about how touching her some more would feel. And quickly disallowed thinking in that direction.

Draco Malfoy knew he had been brainwashed to believe that muggleborns were beneath him and his pureblooded family and friends, that they were nothing better than unwashed animals. He could see for himself that it was not true. And how could it be possible otherwise that Hermione Granger was the most magically powerful girl in school in his age group? If it wasn't for her ancestry and the fact that she constantly bested him in class (which irked him to no end) and her association with Harry Saint Potter, he would have actually respected her.

He wasn't really interested in her, like he was interested in laying other girls. There was no temptation by her being a "forbidden fruit", a muggleborn. But there was something about a spark of intelligence, of true wit in her eyes that intrigued him and that no other girl was able to compete with. Something about her compassion to give him comfort and not abandon him that night in the classroom, even though he was a sworn enemy. And even though she hadn't heard of magic before her letter from Hogwarts arrived and her problem solving strategies sometimes showed that she had not grown up with magic and lacked some true understanding of its essence, she made up for that lacking with her focus that enabled her to maximize her magical powers to a potency over many a pureblood. Where she lacked in beauty and grooming in comparison with Pansy's contrast of dark hair and blue eyes and other girls silky straight long blond or red hair, Hermione exuded confidence in her powers and the fact that she was able to learn _everything_. It made her shine from within in a way that regular beauty and plucked eyebrows would not do. Plus he knew for a fact from the Christmas ball in fourth year that Hermione Granger cleaned up well when she put her mind to it.

Now she looked everything but nicely groomed and she exuded a quiet hurt that was not like the one he had felt the weeks before. But Hermione Granger wallowing in hurt was very unlikely for the confident and bossy girl she usually was. And he was too curious to let the opportunity pass, to ridicule her for yet another thing as he had done the last five years. Thus, he had to say something to rile her up; to get her back for putting him on the spot in the empty classroom and for the humiliation that he had to endure all the time because she bested him in class. Like she had riled him up from day one they entered Hogwarts. And what a disappointment it had been when mere months in, she suddenly ended up being best friends with Potter and his Weasel sidekick. As if she hadn't given him enough grief already by being an unreachable Gryffindor and a Know-it-all who is socially awkward.

He had to almost bite his tongue not to laugh out loud when he heard her reason for her hurt. Brown had finally taken the initiative to snog the living daylight out of the Weasel. He had seen it coming miles off. It was so like the Weasel to go for the easy prey and not see the high quality girl right under his nose. Only one as stupid as Ron Weasley would actually consider dating the Brown bird. How anybody could choose Lavender Brown over Hermione Granger was beyond him. Well, true, for jumping in the sack the likes of Brown, Patil and Parkinson were more suitable. They were nice to look at and to touch and they had steadily built their reputation for being the school sluts. He knew of at least five boys who had enjoyed their company, to put it politely, and you could do a lot worse than laying these. But they couldn't hold a boys interest for the life of them, after the shag. Well, to be fair, Parkinson was a good friend on top of being a good shag. But not like her. With Granger you likely had to work hard to get anywhere; for her to trust you and to open up to you. But he was sure, once you had done that she would be able to fill a part of your life without too much effort. And not because of insipid flattery and ego-stroking like the way the other girls scored. He could value that she was likely to challenge a man with her intellect and opinions in a way that enriched his life. She was a cut above. Even if she was his enemy and no temptation for him personally - of course not, right? - she deserved better, and he was hoping that she was not giving herself away to the likes of the Weasel out of hurt or spite. The other girls couldn't hold a candle to her. He had felt compelled to say as much to her. And so in his own way, he had.

** DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG DMHG**

**Hermione's POV:**

Hermione stayed in her window niche for another hour to puzzle over what Malfoy had said. It had almost sounded like a compliment in his disturbed, insulting sort of way and that could not be right, could it? But he had pointed something out that gave her food for thought. Lavender had gained Ron's attention by offering her body and that was something that Hermione was not willing to do. Not yet, at least. She wanted to connect with a boy on a different level first, see if they liked to spent time together before jumping in the sack. Because let's face it, these were teenage boys; giving them the opportunity to have sex had to trump all other interests. But that kind of interest waned quickly, too, if you didn't connect on another level. Of course, teenage boys would go for a girl who tempted them to let them in her knickers but did she want to be that? No. Definitely, no.

With Ron she knew that they connected, they had spent the last five years as best friends. But how was she to gain Ron's attention other than as his friend? Maybe she should start going out with other boys? Ginny did an excellent job on being very popular by dating and snogging and not going any further (as far as Hermione knew). Now, Ginny was a very pretty girl with her flaming red hair and soft pale skin and her athletic figure. But Hermione did not lack confidence in her looks. Yes, she had a big head of hair but she knew that some boys even liked it. Her legs were equally long as Ginny's and her skin equally soft and pale. And she had fewer freckles. Ginny had brown eyes as well, that did not seem to deter any of the boys. Hermione's problem, she knew, was that she never paid attention to any boys, except Harry and Ron. She knew that you had to flatter them a bit, talk to them about what interested them and make them aware of your attributes by playing with your hair and lips and such.

Hermione groaned. Okay, if she had to do that, she would. It would take so much time from her studies but if it was necessary to gain a boy's attention…

But she had to be careful not to overdo it. If she started flattering Ron now, everybody would think that she wanted him now that Lavender had claimed him. Maybe she should simply pay attention to another boy and make herself popular? Rile Ron up a bit over whom she was with? Now, who would do the trick?

And in a stroke of genius it came to her who would annoy Ron the most. Just in time before Ginny came to collect her, ranting about her idiot brother all the way back to the common room. Hermione went willingly back with her, even though she had to hide her heavy swallowing when she saw Ron and Lavender missing from the common room when she arrived with Ginny. She recovered quickly and simply used the opportunity to put her plan in gear and sidled over to the side of the seventh years and joined in their conversation about the game. If they were surprised about the sixth year, resident brainy Hermione Granger joining them in a conversation about Quidditch they didn't show it and she had enough opportunity to put out the hook for her intended target.

DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGMDHGMDMHGDMH GMDHGDMHGMDHGMDHG

_Cheers_

_M_


	4. Christmas

**4. Christmas**

Hermione didn't see how Draco Malfoy was dragged in by the ear to Professor Slughorn's Christmas party. She didn't follow the discourse surrounding him because she was hiding from Cormac McLaggen like her life depended on it. What had she been thinking, she scolded herself. She knew his character; why else would she have him confounded at the try-outs? She knew his unbearable braggadocio, so why did she think he would be so different when going out with her of all people? Preposterous.

After her brief talk with Harry and Luna she hid behind one of the ample wall decorations where she had a prime view over the room and could see him coming. She also had to make sure the coast was clear so she could escape unscathed and with both her ears still attached to her head. She was surprised therefore when she peaked out the next time and did not see Cormac but Draco Malfoy leaving, held by the arm by Professor Snape. Two minutes later, she saw Harry leaving with an inquisitive look on his face and thought this moment was as good as any and with other people leaving the party, she could dare to do so as well.

Carefully she snug out behind the curtains and made her way through the throng of people and out the door, breathing a sigh of relief when she'd closed the door behind her. She ambled down the corridor thinking about her mistake. It was not very ladylike to vanish from a party without saying good-bye to your date, but it couldn't be helped. If she had talked to McLaggen again, she would have never been able to leave. Making her way slowly upstairs, she paused again at her favourite niche on the seventh floor. It was still early and she couldn't stand telling people in the common room why she was back already from Slughorn's party and without her partner. She leaned her forehead against the cool stonewall to cool off. What was she going to tell everybody when asked about the party?

She was deep in her thoughts and enjoying the coolness of the wall against her burning cheeks when she heard footsteps approaching and his well-known voice.

"Well, Granger, party not to your liking?"

She turned around to face him, leaving the back of her head still leaning against the wall and smiled a thin-lipped smile.

"And you, Malfoy, fancy a walk on the seventh floor again?" He snorted, but she could see the turmoil in the grey depths of his eyes. She closed her eyes again and shook her head. There was no reason not to answer his question. With a grim smile, she added: "You could say that."

He watched her, surprised again that she trusted him enough to talk and for him not to jinx her, up alone here, and that she even closed her eyes and gave him an advantage.

"With whom did you go?"

"Cormac McLaggen." She answered without hesitation.

He was stunned into silence for a second. When she opened her eyes to look at what he was doing, she could see an evil grin spread over his handsome face. He started chuckling, and then laughed full out. A full belly laugh. She liked the sound of it, never having heard it before from him. All Malfoy ever did in her presence was smirking, snorting and sneering. She had never heard him laugh without restrictions. It was infectious and she started to laugh as well.

It took a minute or two for him to catch his breath enough to ask: "Honestly?"

"Well, yes." She squeezed out between bouts of breathless laughter. Another bout shook him as well, doubling him over.

It took them five full minutes to quiet down enough to continue speaking.

"Oh, Merlin."

Hermione, still breathless, wheezed: "Yes, big mistake."

Malfoy wiped residue of tears from the corner of his eyes with the back of his hand. "Oh, Merlin, I needed a good laugh."

Hermione sniggered. "Yes, me too."

"So, why did you do it?" Malfoy asked, still grinning.

Hermione became quiet and her face fell. "I thought it would annoy Ron the most."

His grin became wider." Are you still on that?" She frowned. "Are you too stupid to take advice when it has been given to you?"

Hermione eyes blazed at him. "Yeah, well, and since when would I listen to your advice of all people?"

Draco held her gaze but couldn't let go of the grin. "Hm, good point. But you were wrong in one thing."

"Oh?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Well, the honour for best person to go out with to annoy the Weasel would be mine."

Hermione's eyes widened. She couldn't believe her ears. "How typical, Malfoy, to claim an honour for something as nefarious as this. We both know that you wouldn't have gone to Slughorn's party with me."

He grinned at her. "Well, no, of course not, but it would have annoyed the Weasel the most."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "His name is Ron Weasley and I would appreciate if you could refrain from insulting my friends to my face. It's simply bad manners. Okay, I give you that Cormac was the second best person for the job. But I had to find one who WOULD actually go with me and make a somewhat believable story, not embarrass myself in front of the school by asking you. I can very well do without."

"I see." Malfoy sobered quickly.

Hermione scoffed. "Oh, don't become all sensitive on me, Malfoy. You don't like me, I don't like you, so why all the sensibility now?"

Malfoy schooled his face into his perfect mask. "Granger, not that it's any of my business, but do you really want a boyfriend who will always think of his own needs first? Who will eventually look down on you because he doesn't understand half of what you are saying? If you actually want that then I'll say no more because you deserve it. How typical."

"Ron is not like that."

"You'll see. Besides, what do you see in him?"

Hermione sighed and took on a far-away look. "He makes me laugh, he is loyal, he would never abandon somebody who is important to him, he is warm …"

"A dog. You need a dog," Malfoy interrupted.

Hermione's eyes blazed again, but at the same time she had to keep herself from grinning at Malfoy's dead pan. A dog, indeed.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Explain then."

"Why should I? What is it to you?"

"You might as well tell me. I'll figure it out anyway." He smirked but the mimic did not reach his eyes.

Hermione mustered him thoughtfully.

"By the way, what are you doing here?"

He looked away from her. "Is it forbidden to walk through the castle at night?"

Hermione almost chuckled. "Well, yes."

"What's it to you?" He gave her question back.

"I'm curious?"

When he remained silent she rolled her eyes again. "Malfoy, I already know that you have a task to do, remember? Why don't you just say it?"

"None of your business," Malfoy mumbled uncharacteristically. "Same goes for Snape."

"Snape? What about Professor Snape?" Hermione was alert.

"He meddles."

Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "So he wants to help. Didn't you say he is your godfather?"

"He wants the credit for helping. Snape is trying to steal my glory."

Hermione snorted. "Please, Malfoy, you sound like a petulant child."

Malfoy clenched his jaw. She sounded just like Snape himself. "I can do this on my own."

Hermione looked doubtful. "Can you?"

Malfoy became enraged. "Yes. It's just taking longer than I thought it would."

Hermione looked at him seriously. "Shouldn't you take all the help you can get, then?"

Malfoy looked somewhat desperate. "No, I need to do this alone. He'll find out and kill us all."

"Wouldn't he do that anyway?"

"Not if I complete the task and it's not impossible," Malfoy exclaimed.

She looked at him sadly. "Aren't you a little naïve? Didn't you tell me that Death Eaters like to torture and kill?"

"But not their own, Granger."

"I hope you're right, Malfoy. I hope you're right."

They both kept silent, lost in their thoughts.

"Snape is not the enemy," Hermione continued quietly. "However, there is someone suspecting you. You should be careful."

Malfoy glared at her. "You mean Potter is meddling as well?"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders again. "You can't blame him for wondering why you are not playing Quidditch anymore, why you vanish from the face of the earth for hours and why you look so stressed."

Malfoy looked furious. "Ridiculous. Malfoys do not look stressed. What are you on about?"

Hermione looked sad. "Have you looked at yourself recently, in a mirror? Really looked? The rings under your eyes are deep enough to hide a hippogriff."

Malfoy ground his teeth. Hermione continued. "You need to be more careful, Malfoy. Your withdrawal from your regular activities will draw attention, is already doing so."

Malfoy looked at her doubtfully. "Why are you telling me? "

Hermione frowned. She paused for a second and then said with a sigh: "Because I know you do whatever you do under immense pressure. And you are still just a child. We are all children, robbed of our youth by the threat hanging over our heads. And I know that you will warn me when danger comes. I know we can fight it, fight him. And we will have to. It's just a speeding up of the final confrontation what you do, it's all just a matter of time."

Malfoy was stunned by her level of preparation to face danger. But she was still only a mudblood. "Why would I warn you if you don't mean anything to me?" he huffed.

"Because you are not a monster or a killer and you will not want your fellow students come to harm," she said not looking at him. He swallowed. Nobody had ever expressed such faith in him; only demanded that he lived up to expectations, which he disappointed more often than not, of course.

He lowered his head. "Right" He tried to sound condescending. With a clenching of the jaw he tried to rally his antagonism to the mudblood one more time. "Don't think you know me, Granger." But his tone couldn't even convince himself. Hermione gave him a small smile.

With a sideway glance, he made to leave. Already walking down the hallway he threw out: "Happy Christmas, Granger." Hermione turned to leave as well and didn't even look after him.

"You too, Malfoy."

DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG DMHG

**Draco's POV:**

Christmas at home was incredibly unpleasant this year. Not only did I have to worry about Voldemort showing up any time to have an account for the work I'd been doing - and not progressing -, but my parents grilled me at every opportunity as well. I mean, how often can you say: it is more difficult than I had thought; I don't know how long it will take? There weren't as many Christmas gifts as I usually received, but I could live with that. In the situation I was in I started to realize that materialistic possessions might not be everything.

Additionally, I had to hide the fact that the frequent meetings with Granger were giving me food for thought. I thought about how a muggleborn as she could be as smart and as magically competent as she was. And although there was no denying that Voldemort had met one man whom he could not defeat, there had been only that one and he was incredibly powerful. And thinking along this line became very convoluted when one thought about how Dumbledore was a pureblood and Voldemort was not.

So, what did that make?

The Dark One was from a very powerful blood line, Slytherin himself - or so he said. Was blood therefore important? But how pure did it have to be; since he was not a pureblood?

Granger was from no powerful bloodline - at least that nobody knew of - and yet she was incredibly talented. And then there were purebloods like Longbottom, who was scared of his own shadow and who didn't know how to hold his wand the right way if somebody like Granger was not pointing it out to him.

And then there were human qualities. Hufflepuffs were supposed to be push-overs and yet, Helga Hufflepuff had been known for her magical prowess, just like the other founders of Hogwarts. She just hadn't had a specific personality that set her apart from everybody else, except her well-mannered soft-heartiness.

So, what does that say?

That we become more or less magically powerful by association? Or that we learn and grow into it? Or that we only need one powerful parent to become powerful ourselves? A magically bred _pure_ bloodline in any case was not enough to guarantee high powers, by the example of Longbottom. It would be more beneficial to surround yourself and mate with magically powerful ones. Like Granger.

And all this thinking and hiding my thinking over Christmas gave me a headache. I couldn't wait to go back and escape the clutches of my oppressive house. And when it all became too hard, I remembered a warm and tender all-encompassing embrace that smelled of roses. Only then could I slip into the oblivion of sleep.

DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG DMHGDMHG

**Hermione's POV:**

Christmas was relaxing. My parents were glad to have me home for once and we enjoyed our time together. I told them why I wasn't at the Burrow. They were sympathetic of course, hugged me, and told me to not give it too much thought because I was young and if he didn't come around, he wasn't worth it; what parents say in these cases.

Then they left me to my own devices, which suited me just well. I could catch up on my schoolwork and think about Malfoy's task and what it could possibly be that a 16 year old could accomplish. Spy on somebody? That would have been too easy and no sweat for Malfoy. And who would be more important to Voldemort than Harry, and I had certainly not seen him tail Harry. No, it was something to do in the castle, for he had missed Quidditch when everybody else was outside.

I mulled things over for hours, but it was useless. I just couldn't think of anything, especially since we had no clue where in the castle he went.

When I got back after Christmas, Harry told me about what he had overheard when he followed Draco Malfoy from Slughorn's party. I knew already that Snape had offered his help to Draco, but I couldn't tell Harry. So I gave him the most obvious answer which he had heard already three times before.

"Harry, don't you think that Snape was pretending?" He was not pleased. He wanted to prove so hard that Draco was a Death Eater, so he could tell Dumbledore.

"But, Harry, don't you think that Dumbledore already knows? If Malfoy was branded as a Death Eater, Snape would know and he would tell him, wouldn't he? And if he let Malfoy come back to the castle, don't you think he is protecting him? He is just as young as we are, Harry, and whatever he is supposed to do, he is just a child, like we are. Dumbledore would want to make sure one of his students is safe. So, whatever you tell him, what do you think he'll do? Go and confront him and then take him into witness protection?"

That didn't sit well with Harry and made him only more determined to find out what Malfoy was planning.

But since we didn't have a plan we had to wait and see.


	5. How it continued

_Okay, next installment: as you may have noticed from the previous chapters, so far the story runs parallel to the Half-blood Prince. In the coming chapters, J.K. Rowling's and my story start to overlap. Everything in cursive writing is her writing from the books and it belongs to her. Since I simply borrow for the sake of this story and I give credit to the source, I should be in the green. _

_The fifth chapter is rather short and a built up to the next and very necessary, so, I think I'll give you both in one up-load._

_With the usual disclaimer, enjoy and let me know what you think_

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

5. **How it continued**:

**Draco's POV**:

Merlin's baggy pants. It almost killed the Weasel. It was around the school in no time that Ron Weasley had become victim to poisoning and Harry freaking Potter had saved the day – again. Saved his sidekick, lover, best friend, whatever. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it. I felt the blood draining from my already – aristocratically - pale face thinking it had almost killed a fellow student - even if getting rid of the Weasel would have been a bonus - and not the intended. And only by sheer luck had it not happened.

Katie Bell had been an accident. How was one to know that the necklace had not been packed well and that her gloves had holes? But the liquor could not have been touched by students. How unlucky is that?

I took up Parkinson's offer of distraction, but even the pounding and moaning couldn't get my mind of it; I barely completed, paid no attention to Pansy's satisfaction - a first - and it gave me no respite. I became more and more aware that there was only one way to get to the old man and that was face to face. It made me even sicker thinking what that meant and I jumped off Pansy to hurry to the bathroom. I managed just in time to lock and silence the room before I hurled and I excused my hurry later with having to go. She was pissed, of course, but it was nothing to me, I was too distracted. We were friends and she benefited from being associated with me. That should have been enough for her. She had no claim over me. If we had to marry later, she would be well reimbursed for always having been a quick shag whenever I needed one. Friends with benefits. And I knew I had a good lay in my bed with her, that's not a disadvantage for a long marriage. But that was all she could ever mean to me, even if she were to give me Malfoy children and continue our bloodline. And deep down, she knew that. But she didn't give up trying to convince me otherwise.

I was afraid my luck would run out eventually.

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

**Hermione's POV:**

It seemed that ever since Slughorn had produced his little potion, luck had been floating through the castle, taking hold wherever it could. It had been sheer luck that Harry had left a bezoar in Slughorn's bag, that he thought about it in the right moment and that he was able to force it down Ron's throat. Why did we always have so close shaves with fate?

I looked down at Ron's pale face while listening with only half an ear to Harry recounting the story again to Fred and George. I sniffed thinking about how it would have been had we lost him. I would have never had another chance to try to attract him. His warmth, his masculinity, his humour, his goofiness, something would have been painfully missing from my life, from our lives. I couldn't think how Harry would have taken it had his best mate not survived. It made me think of the coming war and how many people, friends and family, we were going to lose. It made my heart heavy. I've had enough time to picture it outside the hospital wing all day waiting to be able to see Ron. It made me furious to think about losing people at all because of a megalomaniac who thinks some people are less worthy than others. Hypocrite.

That reminded me of Malfoy and his task for said hypocrite. I followed the discussion about Slughorn and the poison quietly. And when Ginny said the poison could have been in the bottle, meant for Slughorn, my thoughts jumped ahead. Harry had said it had been a Christmas present for Dumbledore and who would be most valuable in the war against Voldemort besides Harry? Dumbledore. What if the package that Katie was carrying had also been for Dumbledore? Who was the only one person that Voldemort supposedly feared the most, who had fought him off in the ministry last year, who had defeated another dark wizard of our time?

Oh, Merlin, it became crystal clear, he wanted Dumbledore killed. But how desperate had he to be to resort to such crude means? Giving something tasty to Slughorn and expecting him to pass it on? Not bloody likely. What a tremendous mistake to make.

And then Ginny said it. "_So the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore._"

"_Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well,_" I managed to say quietly, dumbstruck by my revelation.

Just then Ron spoke my name. Or something like it. I turned back to him. Oh, Ron, why can't you love me like I love you?

Hagrid stumbled in. And in his ardour he suspected somebody targeting the Gryffindor Quidditch team which was discarded by the others. But he was right in a way that there was a parallel between the two incidents. And when Fred mentioned the Slytherins it just clicked.

"_Well, I don't think it's Quidditch, but I think there's a connection between the attacks,"_ I said.

Upon the others questioning looks I explained my thoughts.

"_For one thing, they both ought to have been fatal and weren't, although that was pure luck." _Luck again, I thought. "_And for another, neither the poison nor the necklace seems to have reached the person who was supposed to be killed. Of course, that makes the person behind this even more dangerous in a way, because they don't seem to care how many people they finish off before they actually reach their victim."_

Before I could go on, Mr and Mrs Weasley came in and all focus was away from me. But my thoughts couldn't be stopped. Malfoy was desperate, I had seen it. He was under immense pressure trying to do a tall order task and killing Dumbledore certainly qualified as that. Luckily, Dumbledore was more than able to protect himself. It was clear that Malfoy was not supposed to succeed, that it was a way of revenging his father's failure. It showed me what a cruel being Voldemort was. I started to refuse to see him as a human. Human beings didn't do that. They didn't send children out on tasks under threat of killing their beloved parents if they didn't succeed, only to have them set up for failure.

I didn't listen to Mrs Weasley's despair of almost having lost a son. We were soon sent out of the hospital wing and Harry and I left the family gladly to themselves and followed Hagrid out. I did listen to Hagrid complaining how terrible it all was and Dumbledore being worried. That did not bode well. Dumbledore usually knew everything. Everything that happened in his school and everything that had to do with Voldemort. I was almost certain that he knew about Draco's task and the fact that Snape offered to help. If he was worried, it meant he had not everything under control.

"_Hasn't he got any ideas, Hagrid?" _I tried to quell my own worries. To no avail.

"_I 'spect he's got hundreds of ideas, brain like his. But he doesn't know who sent that necklace nor who put poison in that wine_, _or they'd've bin caught, wouldn' they?" _He said something else but I tried to think it through. Even if he didn't know exactly, he would have had to have suspicions and would be on the lookout. Of course, accidents as the necklace and the poison can hardly be foreseen and that was a reason to worry, the safety of the students on the line. Shutting up the school? But then, who would watch over the kids who were in the clutches of their parents obeying Voldemort's every whim and the ones who had a dangerous task to complete? That was what worried him.

"_Surely not?"_ I said. And then Hagrid said something about Dumbledore being angry with Snape. And while he couldn't state a reason Hagrid at least recounted the conversation he overheard, of Snape being overworked and Dumbledore taking too much for granted and asking him to make investigations in his house. And I could see it in Harry's eyes that he equalled Slytherin with Malfoy because I thought the same thing.


	6. The incident

**6. The incident**

Malfoy awoke with a start and a gasp from his nightmarish sleep.

Despite very recent events, his nightmares had not been about his fight with Potter in the bathroom, although he felt the pain in his scar over his torso. Instead, it had been a mix of Voldemort's grotesque face and the cruelty he exuded when he had addressed him; and screaming of victims of said cruelty and pain felt by himself for being punished for one thing or another.

Blinking his eyes to shake of his terror, he noticed a bush of hair next to his hospital bed.

"Granger."

Hermione studied him attentively. "Hello, Malfoy."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he groaned. If only she hadn't seen him wake up in cold sweat.

Hermione Granger simply tilted her head and smiled a tight lipped smile at the obviousness of the situation. Malfoy smirked.

"Aww, been missing me, have you? Don't get any ideas, Granger. You are not my type. Besides the blood issue that is."

Hermione sneered in a way that could have given Malfoy a run for his money. He was impressed against his will.

"Don't get any ideas yourself. I just wanted to assess the situation myself. Harry told me what happened, of course, and Moaning Myrtle did her best to help spread it over the entire school, but there is nothing better than seeing for yourself."

Malfoy scowled with narrowed eyes. "What exactly did Potter tell you?"

Hermione waved her hand with a grim smile. "Don't worry, your secret crying is safe with me and Harry. Oh, and Ron, of course. He knows everything that Harry and I know. He'll get over his excitement. But it's not as if I hadn't seen you crying before."

Malfoy scowled deeper. Hermione held her smile. With a harrumph he gave up his resistance and fell back against his pillow.

Granger. Why did she always have to aggravate him? Why did she get under his skin where nobody else could? He wiped his face with both hands, and then dug them in his hair.

Madame Pomfrey had cleaned it from all blood residues. With the help of Professor Snape his cursed wound had at least been properly closed. But a scar would remain.

He felt exhausted, but it was not only due to his injury and he knew that. Potter had caught him at one of his worst moments. The pressure to finish his task grew, and he had just received a deadline. If he didn't finish until one week before the end of the school year, his mother was going to die. And he as well.

He swallowed.

When he looked forward again he noticed Hermione eyeing his chest bandages. He usually slept without a pyjama top, and due to his bandages it was unavoidable tonight. Usually, of course, he didn't mind females looking at his nicely toned chest and stomach. But the way Granger inspected him made him highly uncomfortable. She wasn't looking with longing or desire, she was watching him like a study object and as if he was not a satisfactory outcome. He didn't like that at all.

"See something you like, Granger?" he growled when he had enough.

She came out of deep thought.

"No", she replied quietly. "No, I don't like it at all."

Malfoy growled back. "I can't help it if your friend Potter tried to slice me open. "

Hermione lowered her head. "No, you can't."

She stared at her feet. "And I'm sorry."

Malfoy didn't believe his ears. "Excuse me?"

Hermione looked up and straight at him. "I said I'm sorry."

Malfoy scoffed. "Are you apologizing for your little friend, Saint Potter?"

A bristle shot through her eyes, but she kept her mien calm. "No, I am not apologizing _for him_. I'm just saying I am sorry."

He sneered. "Too right, you can't apologize for him. He should be here, on his knees, begging for forgiveness."

She snorted. "Well, I'm glad he didn't do any permanent damage to your brain. At least your impoliteness centre is unaffected. What's with the self-righteousness? A propos overly self-confident: got your task under control there, Malfoy?"

"No", he growled.

Being angry already, he might as well lash out at her for his anger over not making any progress with his task. He didn't even care that he just admitted to a Gryffindor and a muggleborn that he was not able to do something he had set his mind to.

Why couldn't he repair that damned cabinet? It was not too complicated, there was a clear passage between this one at Hogwarts and the one at Borgin and Burkes, but the objects put in seemed to get lost somewhere.

His attention was pulled back on the formerly buck-toothed Gryffindor by her continued babbling.

"Figures. One wonders what you have to do. I assume it's something magical, because you being a pureblood and all you wouldn't for your life think of using logic for once; of finding a solution and not throwing magic at something. Like looking for a lost rabbit and searching for a vanishing spell instead of looking for holes in the cage and see if the rabbit perhaps escaped and can be found. All you wizards can do is throw magic at it, and if it's not working, you think you haven't found the right magic yet or are too weak in your magical power. Can't you look for once at something and call a blue thing blue?"

Malfoy sneered again. "How would you know since you didn't grow up in Wizard society? What do you know about how we approach problems and magical powers, you little muggleborn? About how some old Wizard families have power in their bloodlines that you can only dream about?"

Hermione scoffed. "Power in their bloodlines, my arse. It looks like you need to apply illegal methods just like everybody else when you get to the end of your line. I've been told you tried an Unforgivable on Harry, am I right?"

The sneer melted of Malfoy's face like an ice-cube in the sun and morphed into a deep scowl.

"He attacked me while my back was turned and had thus the upper hand, the cheater. I finally had to pull something he wouldn't do. And look where it got me. He was not above using curses himself."

Hermione gravely shook her head. "You don't believe that, Draco. Harry does not attack the back of a man. You started the attack because Harry caught you. Harry defended himself."

Malfoy felt betrayed. He had thought that Granger would believe him. But of course, Saint Potter could do no wrong. His sneer was back with full force.

"Oh, of course, Saint Potter is without fault. The bad Draco Malfoy attacked him in the bathroom and just because Potter is such a noble man, he defeated the brute and put him in the hospital," he said bitterly.

Hermione grimaced. "No, he is not without fault. But would you believe me, if I told you that Harry didn't know what the curse would do?"

Malfoy laughed without humour. "How can he use a curse without knowing what it does? Somebody took him aside and told him: Use this one in a fight next time, it'll be really good? Is he really that stupid?"

Hermione looked like she was in pain. "No, he is not stupid; maybe a little naïve at times. But one of his strengths is that he can think of no evil without seeing proof. "

This time, it was Malfoy's turn to bristle.

"How can it be that he can slice a man open with a curse out of stupidity and you still defend him? He saw that I saw him in the mirror. I was just lucky that I got my first spell out while turning before his hit me."

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"Believe me when I say, if Harry had wanted to hit you with your back turned, he would have. He waited to see what you would do. And when you attacked him, he fought back. If he had wanted to land a spell on you with your back turned, he would have, and you wouldn't be here. He fought fair and square, except for this bloody curse. You got what you had coming for you," she said heatedly.

Malfoy was furious. How could she keep defending bloody Potter? Okay, he had wanted to put the Cruciatus on Potter, but he was sliced open before he succeeded. And it still wormed him. At least, he didn't use an Unforgivable. It should count for something, he didn't do it.

He fumed. "Then what are you sorry for?"

Hermione kept her temperament in check. She took one deep breath before she answered.

"I am sorry that you became victim to a curse that was assigned 'For Enemies'." Draco's chest became tight. She couldn't possibly ….?

She raised her head and looked straight at him. "And I don't consider you an enemy. Not anymore."

And with that one look from hazel brown eyes and these words that hung in the air between them, Draco Malfoy's world stood still for a moment. A moment while he decided whether to yell or to laugh. To be hot-headed or cold-blooded. To succumb to the shivers down his spine or to fight them.

How could this self-righteous, self-sacrificing, smart girl dare to change his view of the world? Did he ask her to do that? No, he did not. What right then did she have to change his perspective?

He was Draco Malfoy, for Merlin's sake, heir to an extensive estate, Slytherin extraordinaire, part of an old Wizard family that went back thousands of years. How could she unravel his life force, his roots, his upbringing, his standing in society built upon blood superiority with her little benevolence?

And after this moment of thought Draco Malfoy had decided and he lost control over his carefully trained grip on his emotions and unleashed his fury.

All these measured sneers and smirks of superiority, carefully honed over the years that gained him the reputation of a "cold snake", a typical Slytherin, cold hearted, cold blooded, superior in every battle because their motivation didn't show on their faces, went up in blue smoke when he let go of his normally tightly reined wrath: fury about how he had been brainwashed all his life to admire a dogma that would lead to their demise as a magical community in no less than three generations because of inbreeding; a dogma brought to life by a powerful snake who was not even a pureblood himself; a dogma that taught him to hate people like Granger because of her blood and admire women like Pansy and the Greengrass chicks for their pureblooded upbringing.

Oh, he hated her alright. He hated her for being forgiving and for proving his teachings wrong at every turn; for turning his world upside down every time they talked - at least he knew why he never tried talking to her before this year. He had satisfied himself with insulting her at every turn; for holding it into his face every time that he was wrong to believe what he was told to believe. And for not being able to put that into words to preach against the stagnant, over-used, silly dogma he had been laundered with all his life. He hated her with a passion. And she was going to feel it.

Having always had a tight grip on his emotions and magical powers, Draco Malfoy wasn't aware how inseparable they were. How when emotions flared, the magic was harder to control than with a calm state of mind. But Hermione was. Having studied every aspect of magic as something new, she knew that the reason why Ron's magic was so unfocused was because he could not keep his temper in check. And the reason that her own magic was so brilliant because she had trained herself from an early age to focus sharply.

Hermione had noticed the shift in Draco with her spoken words. She had seen in his stormy-ocean-before-the thunderstorm-grey eyes how the directed focused anger had turned to uninhibited wrath on life, the universe and everything. She had felt the shift in the magic in the room and seen the blue tint the air had taken when Draco had lost his grip on his magic.

Having read as much as she had, she knew that each person's magic surrounded him or her like an aura and that it had a colour that was rarely seen. She had realized quickly that the blue tint in the air was the colour of Draco's magic. And having been friends with Ronald Weasley for almost six years she was well prepared to be on the receiving end of a bad temper and that for one did not deter her.

What took her by surprise was the blue magical field expanding towards her with a force that made her own magic vibrate like the air in an approaching thunderstorm. Instinctively she gripped tight and saw her own deep burgundy appear on impact with the blue. In her shock, she didn't have time to think how to dispel the oncoming magical force and intuitively opened her field to take the blue one in, without knowing how.

Draco Malfoy's look of fury changed to horror quickly when he realized that the blue tint in the air was his magic moving and expanding toward Granger. He tried to retract it, to pull it back but was shaken in his core when it was partially swallowed by Hermione's burgundy field.

For a moment, there had been blue and red separately and then part of the blue vanished into the red and he felt bereft. However, a few milliseconds later everything turned purple and spread over them both and to an onlooker the world would have been perfectly still in a royal colour.

Draco and Hermione on the other hand fought for their existence as they knew it.

Draco was shaken by what felt like the loss of magical energy. With horror he looked helplessly on as the slim girl was shaking under the onslaught of two magical fields whirling for the upper hand.

What he couldn't see, however, was how Hermione fought attack with reception, onslaught with embrace, assault with acceptance. She didn't know exactly what was happening, but she understood that a magical exchange was taking place. And she was not going to lose her magic, not even part of the essence of her magic in the ambush.

But she would not let Draco down in changing him and his magic either. And so she enveloped it, enclosed it, swallowed it, like Mother Earth, all in the few milliseconds that stretched out like eons before the world turned purple when the two fields combined.

While Hermione had protected her nightly exchange with Draco against intrusion from Madame Pomfrey by casting a Muffliato before she even entered the Hospital Wing, there was no way to subdue the bright purple colour and the magical vibration that shook both of them now.

Therefore, it was no surprise that the door to Madame Pomfrey's office flew open after a minute or so and framed Madame Pomfrey herself in her nightgown. She took one look at her students in the eerie purple light and sent her Patronus - a mouse - to the headmaster and the two heads of Houses of the respective students. Then she simply stood in her doorway watching the two teenagers anxiously and feeling her hair stand on end due to the magic vibrating in the air.

Two minutes later, the door to the Hospital Wing flew open and Dumbledore came in, winged on both sides by Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape.

As they stepped into the room, McGonagall started out to say: "Miss Granger, what …" - but halted in awe at the view before them.

Both Draco and Hermione had stopped shaking, but while Draco couldn't take his eyes of her, Hermione floated half a foot over her chair with her eyes wide open, not looking anywhere specific, eerily reminiscent of Katie Bell floating under the power of the curse of the necklace. Madame Pomfrey hurried over with a worried look, wringing her hands. "Headmaster, what do we do?"

He calmed her with a hand on her nightgown clad shoulder.

But before he could answer Severus Snape surprised everybody with his exclamation: "What a colour. Almost like Lil..."

He stopped himself and snapped his mouth shut into a tight line. Dumbledore looked at him sadly, then turned to Madame Pomfrey: "No danger here, Poppy. We'll just wait it out. It should be over soon."

As soon as he said it, the purple light diminished in brightness and with it the intensity of magic in the air. Soft shines of burgundy red and blue replaced it for a second, and then snapped back to its respective owners and vanished entirely.

Hermione fell back down on her chair and forward on Draco's blanket covered legs whereas Draco slumped back in his pillow. Madame Pomfrey immediately hurried over to examine the state of the two students, one patient, and one surprising visitor. Both were breathing, although heavily. Malfoy groaned.

Snape hurried over to him, while Minerva McGonagall moved to hold Hermione's hand and pat it while questioning the headmaster. "Albus, that couldn't have been what I think it was, can it?"

"An adjunction of magic", Snape answered quietly. Dumbledore smiled and nodded amusedly. McGonagall gasped. "In all my years, I've only ever heard of it. But how... these two … of all people." She couldn't finish her sentence.

Dumbledore smiled benevolently.

"I'm not surprised. Not that I expected it. But we know that - although it's extremely rare and therefore sparsely documented - when an adjunction of magic occurs, it is between two magic beings with exactly equal magical powers. And even then only under obscure circumstances. Nobody knows what exactly triggers it, likely because it can be different every time. I'm curious what these two will tell us has happened to cause their entire magic to unleash."

At his words, Hermione stirred, trying to sit up. Minerva McGonagall tried to support her by holding her shoulders. Her worry about her poster student showed through her lack of formality. "Slowly, Hermione, don't strain yourself."

But Hermione shook her of. "Headmaster!" She couldn't continue and swallowed heavily and laid her head down again.

"Yes, my dear?" Dumbledore moved closer to make it easier for her to speak without raising her voice.

"Maybe a glass of water is in order, Poppy?" He interrupted Madame Pomfrey's administrations.

With a "Yes, of course," she hustled off to get the water.

Meanwhile Prof. Snape tried to get some information about the events from his charge. "Draco, what happened?" Draco, dumbstruck, shocked to the core and still angry, wasn't going to tell. He tightened his lips in a thin line and turned his head away. At that Hermione raised her head and, upon seeing his body turned away, stretched her hand and tried to put it on top of his where his hand still laid on the blanket. He startled, looked briefly at her and then whipped his hand away as if burned before she could touch him.

She turned her attention to the professors with a questioning look. At that moment Madame Pomfrey came back with her glass of water and she gulped it down thirstily. Prof. Dumbledore chuckled.

"I can imagine that you would like explanations. Both of you," he eyed Draco above his half-moon spectacles as well, "but I cannot tell you much more than what I already said. We would rather have you enlighten us to what happened and then perhaps we can draw some conclusions together?" He looked encouragingly at his two extraordinary students. So much potential between the two.

Hermione slowly shook her head, as if to clear it.

"I don't know what to tell you, Professors. We were fighting and bickering as usual when this field of magic all of a sudden came toward me."

McGonagall frowned. "But what were you doing here, Ms Granger? It is the middle of the night." Snape scowled but waited for her response.

Dumbledore hummed quietly.

Hermione blushed and looked for help at Draco. But Draco Malfoy kept his head turned. He was not going to participate in this conversation.

"I, I..." Hermione admitted, "I just wanted to see how Malfoy is doing after what Harry, after what happened…"

At this Hermione blushed even deeper and Draco snorted but none denied it. It was easier to deal with this half-truth than the whole truth. Snape raised an eyebrow and McGonagall looked like she had eaten something not quite to her taste and looking for a way to remove it from her mouth inconspicuously.

Dumbledore sighed. "Well, Ms Granger, it is the middle of the night and the hospital wing has visiting hours. Next time, please see that you adhere to these hours." He examined her over his spectacles and Hermione was forced to nod her head, knowing full well that her headmaster knew perfectly that there was a lot more to tell.

He continued. "However, about an adjunction of magic we know, as you may have heard, very little. That is mostly due to the fact that it occurs so rarely and additionally due to the fact that is does not need to take place between humans. Every two magical creatures with the exact same magical strength can invoke an adjunction of magic. That is as much as we can deduce from the few cases that have been witnessed over the centuries. The most prominent case that we know about is the one of Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin."

That got the attention of his students.

"We know of one other example between a dragon and a witch in the 14th century. It is the reason why we know that the magical beings in adjunction don't have to be human. "

"And then, what happened to the beings in adjunction? What happens to their magic?" Hermione tentatively asked.

Dumbledore shook his head. "That is one of the things that we cannot tell you, Ms Granger, Mr Malfoy, because we do not know. Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin went into magical adjunction shortly before they went separate ways due to their debate regarding the selection of students for Hogwarts. And although there have been witnesses for the adjunction of the witch and the dragon and therefore it has been documented, they left the scene together and were never again seen afterwards. "

McGonagall sighed. "What is going to happen to these two, Albus?"

Professor Dumbledore shook his head again. "We don't know, Minerva. We know that magic normally flows from one subject to another, from the stronger to the weaker. A wizard or witch channels magic which he or she draws from a field of magic that surrounds him or her like a shroud. But when two beings with the same strength come together, the magic clashes at times. We don't know how and we don't know what happens afterward. We know that Ravenclaw and Slytherin remained in good health after their separation and lived quite well afterward. All we know is that the two magical fields combine briefly and then separate again. For that to happen, one or both of the beings involved have to release their hold on their magic. We again don't know how and why that happens."

"How do you know two beings of equal magical strengths have to be involved?" Everybody's head swivelled toward Malfoy on the bed. This was the first thing he said since the teachers had come into the room.

Dumbledore smiled. "Because it was well known that the four Founders of Hogwarts were of equal magical strength. That's why they came together to found Hogwarts. There is a way to measure it using arithmetic means and certain potions and charms, but since it is of no actual practical use to know the exact strength and it is quite complicated and long to determine, it is uncommon to do so. But at the time, logically, their magical strength had been the only common denominator for the adjunction to happen."

"Then why didn't the other two Founders clash? Or even Ravenclaw or Slytherin with the others? And why have we never heard of it before?" Hermione was still puzzled.

"That, Ms Granger, has to do with the obscure circumstances under which it happens. We don't know what exactly has to happen to adjunct your magic. Thus, we cannot replicate it. And it didn't exactly change the lives of the Founders affected, so we fail to find the actual purpose of the adjunction. Thus, what were we to tell?" He straightened up. 'I do have my suspicions, though', the old headmaster forgot to mention.

"But I don't believe you have anything to worry about," was what he said instead. "As I said, both founders lived in best health to a considerable age, so it shall not affect you too much. My colleagues and I are going to be curious to follow whatever transpires from your adjunction. We will not make it public as of yet as these are dangerous times. Minerva, Severus, you agree?"

"Absolutely, Albus. They have to be protected. Who knows what will happen if it becomes known that a pureblood and a muggleborn adjuncted?" McGonagall said in a flustered way.

Snape simply jerked his head as a sign of agreement, eyeing Draco at the same time.

Dumbledore beamed. "Well then, if this is cleared, we can all go back to bed. Ms Granger, if you please, Professor McGonagall will walk you to your common room. Under the circumstances, I believe we will forego a detention for being out after curfew, but please consider next time that the curfews are in place for a reason and do not break them again. Poppy, please see to Mr Malfoy receiving recuperative sleep. Severus, if there is nothing else to discuss …?"

He waited for Severus Snape to glance at Hermione and Draco distrustfully, but having nothing to add, walk out of the hospital wing with a swish of his cloak, before he said a jolly "Good night" and left the hall himself.

Professor McGonagall waited for Hermione to be able to stand up before she proceeded towards the wing exit. With a sharp nod toward Malfoy, Hermione followed her favourite teacher and simply walked back with her all the way to Gryffindor tower. They did not talk for a long time. But since the way from the hospital wing on the second level to the Gryffindor common room up in the South tower was a long one, Hermione could not hold her tongue all the way.

"Professor, are you very disappointed?"

McGonagall sighed. "Ms Granger, I would be disappointed if you had been visiting Mr Malfoy for something silly teenagers do, like exchanging bodily fluids."

Hermione shivered at the mental picture of exchanging bodily fluids with Malfoy.

McGonagall continued: "I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you had a very good reason. You are an intelligent young woman, Ms Granger, and if you of all people can build a connection to Mr Malfoy, I would be one of the first to shake your hand for it. I would not offer the same courtesy to girls like Ms Brown, for example."

With this she looked at her charge sideways with an eyebrow raised which gave her an almost smirking expression.

Hermione was flabbergasted. She had never seen her favourite professor look like that. She had to suppress a grin at being so singled out. At the same time it sobered her. If McGonagall of all people treated her like an adult it meant she was supposed to act like one, especially with the coming war. She did not like being reminded of it, it was on her mind more than enough already.

"Yes, Professor," therefore was the only thing she answered and since they had reached the tower by that time, they wished each other good night and she turned in.

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

**Draco's Thoughts**:

It goes without saying that I could not simply fall asleep. Even though Madam Pomfrey had left me a potion on the bedside table before turning in, I did not take it and instead mulled the events over.

It made me nervous to somehow be connected to Granger, all the more because I didn't know in what way. Were we even connected or was this just an event like weather lightning? Something that happened when electrical charges met each other? I didn't know. And nobody was able to tell me. I couldn't even ask advice. I might have been able to look in the Malfoy library. Some events that were not documented for the public were saved in old documents that belonged to my family. Our family had been powerful for a long time, something like that could have happened to a Malfoy before. But I had no access at the moment, so it was out of the question. Plus I had enough to worry about. The Dark Lord was still on my back and my mother's life in jeopardy if I didn't finish my duty.

At first I had been shocked to be hit by Harry Potter with a curse. And shocked that I was bleeding so much. But after I was attended to at the hospital wing, I realized that it was the least of my problems. I wasn't only able to give the Cruciatus. I had received a taste of it when the Dark Lord had visited my home. Just enough to drive the point home that my task was better be completed and I was not to dawdle. As if I had ever dawdled before.

And then Granger showed up in the middle of the night in the hospital wing to check on me. Not only check but showing indulgence, she admitted that Potter was also at fault, that I was not only the bad boy. I didn't think she had a crush on me, or anything. She is too smart and disciplined for that. And I knew she still had feelings for the Weasel, so there was no deep feeling for the poor Malfoy.

But she still felt sorry for me being attacked with a curse. By her best friend, I might add. And her feeling was genuine, I could tell. There had been weariness in her demeanour, under her angry reaction to my teasing. She had been weary of the enemy concept, of the fact that there was going to be war and she was going to be on the other side. And of war itself. Not like she ever asked for it.

And that was what had irked me. That she was going to put her life on the line instead of hiding and saving her skin in the muggle world. That she could still feel compassion when she had been dragged into a war that would be her doom and not even her battle. That she was the bigger person, no matter how you looked at it. That I was a pureblooded wizard, supposedly the elite, but a coward; and when I was with her I saw it and I could put a finger on it, but she wouldn't. She would still encourage me to do whatever I could. Kind of like Harry Potter. He had also been dragged into it. Bloody Gryffindors.

What did she say? Use logic. Check if the rabbit had means to escape before searching for a vanishing spell. If the door was open, if there was a hole in the cage. Hm, a hole in the cage. Perhaps there was a hole in the passageway where Montague broke out. A disruption of the passage. A magical connection to somewhere else.

And now our magic connected. If nothing else, that meant that our magical strength was equal. She, a muggleborn who had never heard of magic before her eleventh year, was equally magically powerful as I who had been raised and bred in the tradition of my family's thousand years of magical history.

And if nothing else, this had to show me that Voldemort's entire system was a lie. That he was out for power and that he found enough idiots who would follow him to receive an even bigger piece of the pie, greedy bastards. Or that they liked torturing people, disgusting sick bastards.

Would I die for it?

Undoubtly.

I would die if I displeased the sick snake or any other of his close followers. We were all replaceable, maybe except my Aunt Bella, but I didn't even want to think about the sick relationship that Voldemort and Bella had.

Did I want to die for it?

Absolutely not.

Nothing could be further from my mind. What do I look like, a tottering loon?

But it was no use; that much I knew. I was a part of it. I had to do my task, I had to get my mother out if it was the last thing I did. And then I could think about what else I could do. To save my skin. And to save hers. Bloody Gryffindor.

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG**

_A/N: This is it, the incident that brings them together – and not. Let me know what you think._

"life, the universe and everything" was a reference to Douglas Adams, the author of a book of the same title. Cheers, Douglas Adams.

And for the adjuncted dragon, I was thinking maybe an Antipodean Opaleye? Cheers, RZZMG

_Cheers, M_


	7. The attack

_Okay, dears, here's the next instalment. Sorry for the wait, sometimes your time is not your own. _

_Be warned as usual, there will be sexual allusions in this scene as well, M for language._

_Many, many thanks to the reviewers since my last update: (PurebloodsDoItBetter, Forbidden1991, and blowsyourmind), you are the best, it's very much appreciated._

_The usual disclaimer: not my own, JKRowling, except for the plot and the part in cursive writing which is definitely JKRowling's property_

_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, on with it:_

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**7. The attack**

One morning in June, Hermione received a surprise visit from a house elf on her way to Ancient Runes.

She was walking alone down the corridor since neither Harry nor Ron shared that class with her. The house elf materialized in front of her, pushed a folded note in her hand and disappeared as quickly as it had come. When she unfolded the note, her heart jumped into her throat. This was it. The war was going to begin.

It read: Be in your niche at 11 tonight.

When she got to her favourite place at 11 o'clock Malfoy was already waiting for her. He leaned against the wall next to her sitting place and studied the floor. He raised his head when she approached and she could see how torn he was. His eyes were grey like lead, like the sky when a storm is approaching. How very appropriate, she thought. She stopped right in front of him.

"Malfoy"

He gazed at her. "Granger," he replied. And then remained quiet, holding her gaze.

After a while Hermione lost her patience. "Well, is it time?"

He broke his gaze at that and looked to the floor again. "Yes, it is time."

"When?"

"Tomorrow night." Hermione was shocked: so soon. And her face showed it.

Malfoy looked at her again, because she said nothing and he saw her shock on her face.

"Just stay out of trouble and hide in your common room and all will be well. Just don't come out."

Hermione remained still for another minute after his words, and then shook herself back into action. "No."

He frowned. "No?"

Hermione looked at his lead grey eyes and said firmly: "No."

He scowled. "Why?"

Hermione smiled a small smile. "Because Gryffindors are noble and brave; the safety of other people is more important. They are not afraid of harm."

Malfoy's scowl deepened. "What a bunch of rubbish. Why do I even tell you if you insist on running into danger?"

Hermione turned her head to look out the window on her right. "Gryffindors are not seeking danger but they are not afraid. They take it in stride that danger lurks behind every corner. However, what they do fear, and that is why they fight so valiantly, is the death and pain of innocents, defenceless ones and their loved ones. Some are smart and even cunning; but their ultimate goal is always the safety of other people, even if they have to sacrifice their own. That's why."

His scowl softened a bit while he looked at her collarbone showing through her blouse. She had such nice skin; he wished he could touch it.

"And what does that make me?"

"You are a Slytherin. Slytherins fight to keep themselves alive and pain free. They accept that there is pain for the loser but they always hope it is somebody else. They are very cunning in reaching their goals, but their goal is always the best for themselves. They want to escape death because they are afraid of the reckoning. People who live with the respect for other humans, for other beings know that death is nothing but a transition, a freeing of the soul. People, who do not respect that, know that death is hell because they will have to go through it to make up for their deeds. Karma is a bitch."

She couldn't say it to his face that he was a coward and that she expected no hero deeds from him. It wasn't quite true either. He stood up for the safety of his mother, of his family after all. Instead she looked at him and said: "It makes you one who wants to survive."

Malfoy snorted. He wouldn't delve on it now.

"That is just stupid. Why do I warn you when you don't heed my warning?"

At this she looked back at him. "It is better to be prepared than to be surprised. And I thank you for the fair warning. I'll know what to do now."

Malfoy didn't know what else to say to that. When looking into her brown eyes he saw a burning fierceness that scared him, a passion to fight for what she thought was right that burned him to the bone, making him hot under his collar.

It occurred to him in that moment that he had never known before what he was fighting for. He had always followed what his father and family and friends and their families had taught him. Pureblood supremacy, my foot.

Certainly, he wanted a bigger piece of the pie. But he had never had his own cause, he never chose it.

She however, did. Even though it was not her battle, she had made it her cause when she had sided with Potter. And it made him very clear that he could never live up to that kind of bravery. Merlin, he hated her for it. He swallowed.

"Watch out, Mudblood?" His voice was hoarse from suppressed emotions and it came out as a question because it didn't fell right anymore.

She smiled at him. "Take care of yourself, Malfoy." Then she put a hand to his cheek, a soft caress.

And with that one soft touch to his cheek and good wish, Draco's world shifted.

When asked years later, if he could pinpoint the moment he stopped hating Muggleborns and think derogatory thoughts about them, he would indicate this moment. He could feel the shift in his universe like he had closed his eyes one second and when he opened them again, happened to look at a different reality. A blue tinted one. Or perhaps purple.

With this shift Draco Malfoy realized that he felt compelled to kiss this girl right in front of him. Not because he was so terribly attracted to her; he wasn't. He simply had to. He might never have a chance to do it again.

So he straightened up and put both his hands on her cheeks in one swift movement and then moved his lips to hers and kissed her softly.

Her lips were soft and firm and responsive and she took as much as she gave, her hands digging into his hair and pulling. He liked the feeling of it and shoved his own hands further in her mass of hair so that they were just covered. The air sizzled and shook around them and then settled quietly.

It took them more than a minute or two to run out of steam but when they let go of the kiss, they were both a bit breathless. Hermione moved her hands from his hair to his waist. A slight flush on her face, she gave his waist a quick squeeze and then turned and left. Words were not necessary.

Looking after her retreating back, Draco had never felt so lost in his entire life.

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG**

None of them saw the black cloaked figure hiding in the shadow, watching their every move. Severus Snape had seen a lot in his life, but the completion of an adjunction of magic was his first. After Hermione had left, he trusted his godson to find his way back to his quarter in the dungeons, and left. His steps carried him to the headmaster's office where he was expected.

"Yes, Severus?"

"Yes, Albus. It is done. He warned her, she touched him, it is completed."

"Only through the touch?"

Severus Snape cleared his throat. "Well", he raised an eyebrow, "they kissed as well but the process had already been underway."

Albus Dumbledore's eyes gleamed. "They did, didn't they?" Snape harrumphed.

Dumbledore looked up at him, standing in front of his desk. "Please, sit down. Ah, Severus, even if it's not love, the connection to another being is a wonderful thing."

Snape rolled his eyes. "Yes, headmaster."

Albus looked at him over his spectacles. "Don't headmaster me, Severus. You of all people know what I'm talking about."

Snape sobered very quickly and looked into the fireplace. "I certainly do."

"Well, then," the headmaster continued, "is everything set for tomorrow?"

Snape looked at his hands. "Everything is set."

"Severus," he looked up at his old friend, "you know what to do?"

Snape became annoyed. "When was I ever not prepared?"

Albus Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want me to answer that? Do I have to bring up the prophecy and its consequences?"

The man across from him bit the inside of his lips. "You know what I mean."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Yes, I know what you mean. But, my friend, I want to give you the last opportunity to ease your mind and soul for tomorrow's task."

The dark haired man simply shook his head.

The headmaster nodded. "Well, then, I will take Harry away with me. It will be dangerous, but he needs to be prepared."

"And you still won't tell me what you do with the boy?"

Dumbledore sadly shook his head. "No, Severus, the less you know, the less you need to hide. I know you do an excellent job of hiding things from Voldemort, but I don't want to burden you more than needed. There are other things I require from you."

Black eyes burned into sparkly blue ones. "Oh, yes, I'm good for tidying up after …" He interrupted himself with a wince.

Albus Dumbledore tilted his head with a calculating look. "You don't want to finish that sentence, do you?"

Snape bit his lips again but could not hide his anger: "No. No, I don't."

The white haired man beamed at him. "Good. Then we are all well prepared. Good night, Severus."

Severus Snape took one look at his headmaster, friend and colleague, gave a stern nod, turned and left.

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG**

**Draco's POV**:

That night I dreamed. I dreamed of soft skin and a smell of roses, of soft lips pushing firmly against mine and curly hair slipping through my fingers. It excited me.

Not in a way that fucking Pansy would arouse me. More like the whole world tingled and vibrated around me and it was the best feeling ever. The last thing I remembered from my dream were soft brown eyes looking into mine and her voice saying: "I am your equal, your other half, your soulmate."

And me turning around snarling: "Deal with it."

While walking away I still heard her voice saying "You are not a killer, Draco, not a killer, not a killer, not a killer…," drifting away.

When I woke to my morning glory on the day of the attack and reality came crushing down, all I could do was think sarcastically: ` Excellent timing, Granger. Just great.'

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG**

**Hermione's POV:**

I didn't expect Harry to leave on that particular night. It threw me for a loop when he stormed into the common room after meeting Professor Dumbledore and told us he was to go away with him. He told us his observations and conclusion and I couldn't prevent gasps of horror escaping me, even though I knew something was to happen that night. Seeing Harry tell us, made it so real, so close, and made my stomach clench. Draco, oh, Merlin, what in Merlin's name was coming? Harry told us to watch Draco and Professor Snape.

"_Harry,"_ I tried to interrupt him. But he wouldn't let me say anything. I tried pushing the Felix Felicis back at him, telling him he didn't know what was to come (and I somehow knew something, I felt safer.) But he wouldn't accept it.

After he left we roused every person we could from the old DA and shared the Felix Felicis between Ron, Ginny, Luna, Neville and myself and then we waited.

And I prayed in my mind that Draco didn't do anything stupid.

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG**

**Draco POV: **

I remember it clearly, the night I almost killed Albus Dumbledore, headmaster extraordinaire.

Oh, yes, even I had to admit that he was extraordinary.

I remember the dizziness, the shortness of breath, the feeling of it being unreal.

It started with me running to the Tower after I met the Death Eaters in the Room of Requirement and let them out, using this Peruvian Darkness Powder to misdirect any people who could have possible dared to be out in the hallway after hours. The bloody Weasels were good for something after all. I ran straight out to the Southside of the castle.

When I jumped up the stairs to the Astronomy tower, taking two at a time I felt my lungs burning. I hadn't realized that I had run all the way up here. I almost jumped against the door leading to the top of the tower and threw it open. I had my wand ready to throw an "Expelliarmus" against anybody who was up there.

And there stood the old man; my headmaster who had been so indulgent regarding the muggleborns for all his life.

Well, as far as I knew. Almost nobody living knew how he was as a young man. I saw his wand flying over the rampart. Why hadn't he defended himself? As old as he was, he was still powerful and awfully quick for his age. Was there anybody else here who had distracted him? I let my eyes row over the platform and saw two brooms.

"_Good evening, Draco."_

So typical. White as a ghost, disarmed and at my mercy but manners first. I took a step forward to have a better view.

"_Who else is here?" _I asked. My mouth was dry as a desert. Get a grip, Malfoy, you can do this. I looked back at him.

"_A question I might ask you. Or are you coming alone?"_

Not that he looked like he could have overpowered me without a wand but better make sure that he knows I am not alone, I thought.

"_No, I've got back_-_up. There are Death Eaters here in your school tonight._"

Eat that, old man. In my mind, I grinned evilly, but my mouth wouldn't cooperate. Damn nerves.

"_Well, well", _he said. "_Very good indeed._ _You found a way to let them in, did you?" _

I couldn't believe it. Here I was, pointing my wand at him and Death Eaters were in his school and he didn't even blink. He was not even surprised. Very good, my arse.

'Like I need your praise, you old fool. I'm going to kill you. I don't need anything from you,' I thought. If only my throat wasn't so tight. I took more deep breaths.

"_Yeah. Right under your nose and you never realized!" _Air, I needed more air.

"_Ingenious. Yet …forgive me… where are they now? You seem unsupported."_

"_They met some of your guard. They won't be long …I came on ahead. I – I've got a job to do." _

This was it. If only the old fool would look more frightened, that would make it a lot easier.

"_Well, then, you must get on and do it, my dear boy."_

I remember thinking 'What is he doing, is he pitying me? I'm going to kill him and he pities me? You just wait, you stupid, old codger… Come on, Draco, it's easy, just say it, two words and the world is rid of him, and you'll be rewarded and your parents released. All will be good as before. Come on.' My thoughts were racing together with my heart and the winner was yet undecided. At least I could breathe again.

'Draco' it sounded in my head. I knew that voice, but I couldn't believe that I heard her here. She wasn't here, I checked.

'Draco, what are you doing? We need him.' She pleaded in my mind.

'Ha, Granger. Plead as much as you want. I'm going to kill your hero and then the Dark Lord is going to kill Potter because he has no protection anymore. And I'll be rewarded and rich and if I'm lucky I'll get you as my personal slave once we cleaned up with the muggleborns. Mudbloods. Muggleborns. Grangers and so on. Right? Granger?' I almost leered at the thought.

'Draco, you are not a killer.'

'What do you know, Granger? You think I can't do this? You think I'm weak? You just watch,' I thought.

By now, I could see her soft brown eyes before my inner eye and they looked sadly at me. I saw her mouth opening again, her soft lips, firm and soft and so delectable.

'You are not a killer. You are not a killer. You are not a killer.' Her voice drifted away. 'Wait, Granger, come back, don't leave me here like that.'

"_Draco, Draco, you are not a killer,"_ I heard for real. I stared at Dumbledore's smiling face and swallowed. Damn Granger for distracting me like that. And it was so not true.

"_How do you know?" _I held against his presumption. But it was no use. I felt myself blushing. How childish. Come on, Draco, rally up some spine. I exhaled forcefully through my nose.

"_You don't know what I'm capable of, you don't know what I've done!" _I pressed out_._

"_Oh, yes, I do. You almost killed Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley." _

Ha, so he knew. Wait – what? How…?

"_You have been trying, with increasing desperation, to kill me all year. Forgive me, Draco, but they have been feeble attempts …" _

Feeble? What did he mean, feeble?

"_.. so feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has really been in it …" _

'And that was the crux of all, wasn't it? Was my heart in it? Of course not. Do I look like somebody who goes around and kills for fun? Oh, do I?

Well, you're wrong. I am not.

But I have to do it. My parents depend on me and once it's done, we are going to be safe from him, from that monster, and because of that, I am capable of killing.

So my heart really has no say in the whole business because it doesn't get to decide. We are not here for pleasure. There are lives hanging on this. Literally. But I'm not going to tell him that.' Thoughts like these were racing through my head.

"_It has been in it," _I blasted out.

"_I've been working on it all year," _as almost half the castle knows, including that bloody golden muggleborn, _"and tonight –"_

There was a yell from below. Our side or their side? Defeated or triumphant? I didn't know but it made me even more nervous. I barely heard Dumbledore talking on.

" _.. good fight … Death Eaters into my school…. do it?"_

Because there was this voice in my mind again, her voice, asking me, distracting me, pleading with me, Granger, … Hermione.

'Draco, please, Draco, please, Draco, don't do it, you are not a killer, you are not a monster, save yourself, come to us, Draco, please, I'll help you, we'll help you, all you need is to ask, please, Draco, please, please, please….'

One constant stream of begging, in her own breathless, soft voice, somewhat like she spoke when answering a question in class, an answer that she knew from heart but also different because her voice was so soft, like she was in a precarious situation and this was none the less all she could think about. Like she knew where I was at the moment and what I was doing. Like she could see through my eyes and follow my struggles.

'Don't be afraid, Draco, we can help you, we'll hide you, we'll hide your parents, we'll defy him, we'll protect you, just don't do it. Don't be afraid, Draco, don't be afraid…'

"…_afraid to act until they join you." _I came out of my trance looking at the soft face of Dumbledore. Afraid? She had said that, too. Afraid! I am not afraid.

"_I'm not afraid," _I snarled. Time to bring in the big guns.

"_It is you who should be scared." _

You old fool, your time has come to an end.

He kept babbling to distract me and I found myself explaining how I brought the Death Eaters inside the school. How I smartly used the knowledge from Montague's mishap with the Vanishing Cabinet to my advantage. I even admitted that I took to desperate measures when I became reckless after a long time of no progress.

Until Granger gave me the life-saving tip. Granger. If she knew what I did with the knowledge she gave me. And that he still did not suspect me.

"_As a matter of fact, I did. I was sure it was you," _the old fool said.

I didn't believe a word of it. "_Why didn't you stop me, then?" _I demanded to know.

Idle chit-chat. Dumbledore's time was running out. I don't know what had happened to him, where he had gone, where he came from; but whatever it was it had done a trick on him. He was growing weaker as we spoke, sliding down the rampart of the tower. Maybe if I waited long enough I didn't need to avada him. He looked like it couldn't take much more time.

"_I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on my orders _"_

No. I heard her again, her voice. 'Snape is not the enemy, Malfoy.' He couldn't be, the Dark Lord trusted him and he had done the Unbreakable Vow with my mother.

"_He hasn't been doing your orders, he promised my mother -"_

"_Of course that is what he would tell you, Draco, but –" _did the old fool dare to interrupt me. He had it wrong, he had it all wrong, he must have had. Of course, we knew that Snape was supposed to be close to Dumbledore. That was why he was so useful.

"_He's a double-agent, you stupid old man, he isn't working for you, you just think he is," _I almost yelled. I knew, he was wrong, but he was so convinced. And an old fool, he might have been, but he was not easily hoodwinked. And Granger also believed the same thing. It didn't make sense, it couldn't make sense.

"_We must agree to differ on that, Draco. It so happens that I trust Professor Snape –"_

"_Well, you're losing your grip, then!" _I sneered. "_He's been offering me plenty of help – wanting all the glory for himself –"_Isn't that what he wanted, I thought. When has Snape ever been looking for glory, though? Even when he had part in something successful, he was always very subdued about it, never bragging, always putting down the ones who did, like he had an aversion against posers, always doing his part brilliantly.

I couldn't stop myself from talking to Dumbledore. Talking myself into what I wanted to believe, what I feared to be true, what I needed to happen, my parents freed and us Malfoys freed from the shame of my father's failure.

Dumbledore blabbered on about the gratification of hard work and an accomplice I must have had.

Please. If I was going to avada him, didn't he think I was able to imperious somebody to help me? I would have imperioused Crabbe and Goyle if I had to, but they offered freely to help. Even though transforming into little girls and stand guard was not really what they had in mind.

There had been more yells from below and they came closer. My time was running out, too, quicker than Dumbledore's, it seemed. But he was still babbling about the way I had accomplished everything and I have to say, it felt good that somebody acknowledged the accomplishment.

"_Enchanted coins," _I admitted to one of his questions. And that I had the idea from Mudblood Granger. I almost winced when I said it. Muggleborn, then. Shut up, conscience.

Dumbledore admonished me for using the M-word and I had to laugh that he dug right into my thoughts again. But I made fun of him. I can do that in my sleep, making fun of people. That's what I'm good at. Not in the infernally comic way the Weasel twins could do it and make even the victim laugh but in a hurtful way. I was still good at it, putting my finger in the wound where it hurt the most. I had learned from the best, my father.

"… _still you have not acted …" _Reminding me again, the bloody bastard. I grimaced like swallowing a bitter pill. Talking about dead people.

"_Somebody's dead," _I said, and it irked me tremendously that my voice skipped. I had to step over a body on the floor to come up here and it was squishy and slippery and very unpleasant. There had been a metallic stench in the air that made death only too real.

Dumbledore said something about options. Options? I didn't have options. I'd either kill Dumbledore or be killed myself. And my family with me. And I couldn't see my mother die because I had been too weak to kill an old man. Who looked half dead already, by the way. And still offered help. Just like Granger. What was it with these people fighting for the light? Did they have no realism? Did they not know what will happen to them when the Dark Lord has won? Why didn't they swear allegiance to him and then live by his mercy? Wouldn't that be better than to be killed for fighting against him? To do something for him and then hope that he cannot find anything to punish you for?

I stared blankly while my thoughts ran wild. And I got his far, surely he would appreciate what I did?

"_But I got this far, didn't I? They thought I'd die in the attempt," _the bloody bastards, that should teach them not to underestimate a Malfoy.

Footsteps interrupted my thoughts. Then the door banged open and four Death Eaters in black robes spilled out onto the rampart we were standing on. The Carrows, Greyback and Gibbons, of all people.

Monkeys, all of them. Like they would help me finish my task. They would rather gleefully watch when I was tortured for a failure.

Their banter with Dumbledore went over my head as much as their praise for cornering him. Like that had been anything big.

When they talked about me letting Greyback into the school, a vision of Granger being mutilated by him attacked me. There was blood everywhere and she screamed.

Oh, Merlin, what animals was I working with? How could muggleborns be any lower than such scum? Could Hermione Granger be lower than this animalistic werewolf gone wild who just picked his yellow teeth with his fingernails? I barely suppressed the shudder of disgust.

Hermione with her smell of roses, like my mother's garden? I envisioned her face again, how sad she looked at me, how it warmed me when she actually smiled at me (which was very rare and almost always accidental), how soft and warm her lips were.

In my head, she pleaded again: 'Draco, please, don't do it, please, don't do it, not for me, don't do it for you, for yourself, for your sanity, please, Draco, please.' Shut up, you stupid muggleborn. Stop invading my mind.

There were yells and screams again and then Severus Snape joined us. I almost exhaled in relief before I remembered what Dumbledore had said about Snape working on his orders. He gave me one look and there were no emotions in it. His eyes were stone cold and black and almost dead. I always thought I knew how to shut myself off, but with this look I had found my master. And then his face morphed and with purest hatred Snape raised his wand. And although Dumbledore was pleading green light obliterated my former headmaster. My world shifted back to normal. Snape killed him, he worked for us, my world was right again.

And then we were running. I heard hexes and curses behind me but I didn't dare to turn or fight back. I just kept running, pushed by Snape down the stairs, down the levels of the school, out the front doors. And we ran until we were outside the borders of Hogwarts.

At one point, I thought I lost Severus Snape and was now on my own, but a few seconds later he caught up with me, his face totally enraged. He gripped my arm brutally and apparated me to our Manor. When we got to the Drawing room, we both sank to our knees in front of our pledged Sire and I heard Severus saying:" It is done, my Lord."

And then I knew no more.


	8. The search

_M chapter warning; language and blood and pain and torture of main characters _

**8. The Search**

**Hermione's POV:**

Dumbledore was dead. I cried into Ron's shoulder at the funeral; cried about losing the only man who defied Voldemort and lived to tell the tale. And I cried about the fact that I would have to go with Harry into the unknown. He had kept us updated throughout the year about his meetings with Dumbledore. We, Ron and I, knew what it was about. And that we would have to go with Harry, searching for horcruxes, trying to chip away Voldemort's ties to life piece by piece. There was no turning back now. After Dumbledore's demise it was time to travel the last part of the way.

Harry, of course, tried to discourage us, as we knew he would. He would do it again and again, we also knew, until we were going to be on our way. We reminded him that he had to wait for Bill and Fleur's wedding to be over before he took off. I could see in his face that a wedding was really not on his thoughts. But we convinced him that it would be highly suspicious if Ron wouldn't be at his brother's wedding and he was not to go without Ron. And I.

We had to convince him again in the Burrow right before the wedding. And then everything went topsy-turvy with the Death Eaters taking over the Ministry and us having to flee. We were on our own from then on.

I only thought infrequently about Draco and what was happening to him. I knew he was punished for his failure to kill Dumbledore, but I was glad in a way. Pain can be endured and then subsides, but a rupture in the soul for killing a man is much harder to heal. And he wouldn't be tortured into insanity as the son of a right hand man, even one who had fallen from grace.

I thought I felt his despair and fear and the want for connection every once in a while; something to match my own despair because we went through high and low on our search for Horcruxes. If anyone ever asked me, what was the hardest thing you ever did in your life I would say the search for horcruxes. Not because of the evil we encountered and experienced through the locket; but because we encountered our own depths and despairs. The days alone with Harry were the hardest I've ever lived through. And yet still the best. Because they made me what I am.

I didn't see Draco again until that fateful day at Malfoy Manor.

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**Draco's POV:**

I couldn't wait to go back to school for my last year. With Snape as headmaster and I as Head Boy it couldn't be as bad as my home invaded by Voldemort and his followers, turned into muggle killing central. I fell out of my chair in shock the first time I witnessed a muggle killing right in my home; a woman who happened to be a teacher at my school, Charity Burbage. I threw up on a regular basis due to fucking shit I saw every day; and that was not even counting the time I threw up because I was tortured for my failure to kill Dumbledore.

Actually, I was kind of lucky: I wasn't tortured too badly because I had managed to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts; and even though I didn't do it myself, Dumbledore _was_ dead. The triumphant screech that Voldemort gave due to the 'happy news' made my blood curdle.

Snape accepted Voldemort's gratitude with his usual coolness and simply bowed his head. Not one muscle in his face twitched. Until it was my turn. I believe, he lost a bit of his countenance at the sight of me being cruciod, but I don't think anybody saw it but me. And I kept that memory well hidden in my brain and never shared it with anyone until now. Under better circumstances, I believe I really could have come to love my godfather as a family member. Too bad he's dead.

When I returned to school, I went through the castle looking for her; when I had the time. With the regular training in Unforgivable curses and such, there wasn't much leisure time. I went to her niche and looked out on the grounds, imagining her sitting there. When I looked intensely, I almost felt her. I didn't know how, but somehow I remembered how it felt to stand next to her. I hoped against hope that she, that they wouldn't be captured. She was a talented witch, but she was up against shabby odds. And I couldn't even tell you why I hoped for her safety, because I still didn't like the insufferable know-it-all. Imagining her voice answering a question in class raised the hackles on my back. But I felt like something was missing without her here. And I felt her at times, imagined she was right next to me. I felt inexplicable waves of emotions at times as well, fright, despair, loneliness, hopelessness. But it wasn't that I had no reason to feel these in my own situation and so I beat them down in my consciousness and didn't pay too much attention to them.

And then I knew it just had been a matter of time. The Snatchers were everywhere, doing their utmost to round up runaways, refugees, and others who tried to save their life as they knew it; cleansing society from the rotten beings, history repeating itself over and over again. Why were humans so stupid? It begged the question who was the actual animal because no mammal race would ever do anything like it to their own species. Lemmings actually sacrifice their own lives for the whole but not specific "victims" from the same race. Maybe something goes wrong when you start using your brain for more than just surviving.

I had felt swings of emotions all through the year. Some despair in November or December. A very heavy feeling of fright around Christmas, which I didn't find strange because Voldemort was with us on that day. And strange delights that I couldn't explain a few weeks before they were brought in.

When they brought Potter, Weasley and Granger into our Drawing room I thought I would have a heart attack. What are you doing here, I wanted to yell. Are you even too stupid to not get caught? Who did it, who gave you away, the Weasel, right? Are you not able to protect her one little bit?

It would have been unfair, my yelling, I am aware of that now, but in that moment all my hopes came crashing down. I didn't think they would get out of the Manor alive. I knew Aunt Bella's ruthlessness and my father's need to re-establish himself in the eyes of the Dark Lord. And I also knew that these three kids were our only hope to conquer Voldemort. I refused to call him Lord. He was no aristocracy. I just had to be careful not to think that too clearly.

I knew about the prophecy. It pays to be a Slytherin around here, to sneak up on conversations that you are not supposed to hear, to have lived in this Manor all your life and to have a good relationship with many of the Portraits. I was a Malfoy, the heir, the protégé; they were duty-bound to report to me what had been spoken in my father's study. So I knew that Potter was the only one who had a chance to ever kill that monster.

I didn't know that it wasn't as easy as facing him and speaking the killing curse, but I figured that it needed some preparation or Potter would have been here a long time ago to face him.

None the less, when they were brought into our Manor, they did not look prepared. Potter looked as if somebody had hit him with a Stinging Hex, his face all swollen and almost unrecognizable. The Weasel was despaired, so I figured he was at fault for them being caught. Only much later I learned that I had been wrong in that assumption. In that moment I thought, so bloody typical. I could see the wheels turning in Hermione's head, working overtime to find a solution but this was no textbook situation.

I did my best not to identify them. It wasn't too difficult. They'd been in the woods for months and they looked worse for wear. But Granger's bushy mane was a dead give-away, I would have recognized it anywhere. And Potter's emerald eyes were as rare as my steel grey ones. And a red-head accompanying them could only be the Weasel.

When I looked at Potter's swollen face, I tried to avoid looking into his eyes. I am a Slytherin, and lying is second nature to me, but I don't think that I could have done it had I seen any despair in Potter's eyes.

As it was when his eyes finally drew mine in, I saw a glint of defiance in the green depth, a provocation to dare to give him away, a challenge. And I took it up. For Granger. Because she didn't deserve what was coming to her. I knew what they did to female captives. And Potter's mudblood would have been highly sought after to declare domination. I couldn't do it to the young woman who listened to me, who comforted me when I was at my tether's end. Lying works on both ends. And so I lied to my family, insisting that I wasn't certain and building upon their fear to make another audacious mistake.

What came next tortured me just as much as our dream team. I dreamt of the pain endured for years after. Not because of the amount of pain because I only got perhaps half of it. And I had had the full load before. But the fact that it was Granger, who had to suffer, was what made me go out of my mind. It should have told me something right there, but I was too, let's say, distracted to think clearly about it.

As soon as she was brought in the atmosphere in the room had become lighter. Having her in the same room had somehow felt good. After all these months, I still remembered the feel of her and it had felt good in the same room.

Until Aunt Bellatrix set to work. Then the feeling went from bad to worse and worse. Seeing her writhing on the floor and hearing her scream made me go spare. The good feeling that had nicely vibrated through the room was now battering on me. I felt like my head was going to explode. So I did what everybody would do who fought defensively: I grabbed onto what was battering me and held tight. Not literally. I didn't grab with my hands, of course. My magic grabbed the vibrations coming from her and held it. After a few seconds it hummed so loudly that I feared the others would hear it.

And I can't say exactly how I syphoned some of the pain away from her. We are researching the very thing for a while now and have only suspicions of how it came to pass. All I can say is, that I "pulled" on her threads of magic connected with mine with all might, as I felt them flapping like strands in the wind. I held onto them, anchored them to me and took parts of the Cruciatus pain in as it came across the strands, thus enabling her to keep her wits about, to be able to lie to Bellatrix, preventing further damage. Bloody brilliant that witch, saying it was a fake. Lucky, the goblin confirmed it.

I bit my tongue bloody trying not to scream, to not give away what was happening; and not to let go again of her magic energy. I did have some practice, I don't mind to admit. When you are hit with a Cruciatus curse, the pain overwhelms you and the helplessness of not knowing when and if it ends is what almost kills you. But with a detached and disciplined mind, you can keep your wits about you, for some time. You only learn that with practice, though, and practice in taking the Cruciatus curse was not something that Granger had.

So I did what I could. I pulled on her magic and took some of her pain into me and nobody noticed me crouched in the corner, barely able to breathe. I gathered all my strength not to vomit because it would have given me away. Nobody noticed my bloody tongue, with all the bloodshed after, the fallen chandelier, the punishments that we all had to take, not even my mother. But then, I didn't expect her to. She had enough to do to cope with her own pain residue.

When I say, nobody noticed my bloody tongue that is actually not quite true.

I said, I was a born liar, didn't I?

Potter saw it when he ripped the wands from me. I am not sure that he knew the importance of it, though; we never talked about that night again. I was too numbed from the pain I took in, to pose any resistance to Potter. I wasn't aware what it meant for him to disarm me and at that moment neither did he. But he figured it out.

He gave me a brief nod, as if to thank me for not identifying him before Dobby took him away. I don't think I've ever been more grateful to a house-elf. Knowing that they were, that she was safe again, I took my punishment in stride afterwards. As much as you can take a Cruciatus in stride, that is. But I had never felt the pain so little while under the curse as this time, knowing that I had protected her from the worst.

My father got the worst of that one. The aftereffects lasted for weeks. I licked my wounds, cowardly fool that I was, trying not to raise the attention of Voldemort, hoping against hope that she would be and stay safe. When I heard of the Gringott's incident I couldn't hide a smile: they'd escaped on a dragon? Granger and flying? The courage of this woman had no end.

Incidentally, the Gringott's incident was right before the final battle. And we only heard about it because Snape as the Headmaster of Hogwarts told us.

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**Hermione's POV:**

I looked out at the stormy see of the coast of Cornwall and admired its power and beauty. It reminded me of stormy grey eyes, of course, and its force of tremendous, incredible pain endured. And yet while I was lying on the cold hard floor in the Manor being tortured, I felt something touch me and then the pain lifted somewhat. The touch was familiar and feather light and associated with a feeling of soft lips and a faint smell of citrus and leather, somewhat male.

My body ached for days afterwards but I felt immensely pleased that we had all escaped, more or less unscathed - except for Dobby, rest his soul - and that I had thrown out a false lead with the sword. When I dreamt at night I felt the pain again and again in my aching joints but miraculously also the lessening of it. And I felt it like it was his pain, too, because I knew that he would be punished for what happened at the manor. I just wished I would ever have a chance to see him again, to be able to thank him. And so it went.

_A/N: I think Shell Cottage is in Cornwall. Let me know if I'm wrong._


	9. The Final Battle

_And here's the next instalment. I'll be gone for a week, so updates will be a little slower. As usual, the cursive writing in the text is JK Rowling's original, this time from the Deathly Hallows. Which makes a good disclaimer, saying that she owns it. Except for my plot._

_Check the original parallel to reading this chapter. I had so much fun, filling in the gaps with Draco's thoughts. Tell me, how you like that._

_Oh, one more note: when I started writing, I swore to myself that I wouldn't beg for reviews as other writers do. I told myself, you write for yourself, you don't need to care what other people think. But I have to admit: the few reviews that I received made my day. So, many, many thanks to my faithful reviewers, hang in there, there's more to come. And to all the ones who mark me as a favourite story or put me on story alert (I can see you), leave me a note, just a one-liner why you like it, will ya?_

_And without further ado: Enjoy_

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**9. The Final Battle**

**Draco's POV:**

I didn't see her in the Great Hall on the day of the final battle. When Pansy "cleverly" pointed out that Harry Potter was right there after Voldemort had demanded that we hand him over, I searched for her. She was supposed to be right by his side, wasn't she? But she wasn't and neither was Weasley. I had a very bad feeling about it.

When everybody filed out, the Sytherins at the forefront, we went with them and then sneaked off into the hallways to hide, Crabbe, Goyle and I. I wasn't aware what their intentions were, when they went the same way as I; I just assumed they followed me, like they usually had done. I had to follow Potter to find Granger and see if she had recovered and was alright. I couldn't have cared less about Weasley. I saw Potter talking to the Grey Lady, although I couldn't understand their conversation. When he met Weasley and Hermione in the hallway on the second floor, I almost sighed in relief.

I ground my teeth, when I watched her kiss the Weasel although it shouldn't concern me. I believe I became a little possessive of her. I still didn't know, why I would ever do anything like this, because it is so entirely not Slytherin, but after all, I had put myself in pain for her and bit my tongue bloody. What had he done but get her into trouble? Granger was a soul too pure to be sullied by a greedy weasel, even if she wanted his attention. Even I recognized that. I took it as a good sigh that I hadn't gone too far to the dark side.

I felt a cold shiver, though, when I realized where they were heading afterwards: The Room of Requirement. I had basically lived in there, all last year; I could almost smell it, as we approached the corridor. We used short cuts and got there before them, waited if they actually went in there and snug in behind them, Crabbe and Goyle relying on my expertise concerning the room.

Potter was searching for something when we found him in there; holding my wand.

"_Hold it, Potter. That's my wand you're holding," _I said. But I felt, even when I said it, that it wasn't true. That wand did not belong to me anymore; I felt no draw to it. It felt foreign. That was odd. I felt a draw however to the other side of the room. Where Granger must have been.

"_Not anymore," _he said. _"Winners, keepers, Malfoy. Who's lent you theirs?"_

"_My mother,"_ I had to admit. I was not ashamed, even though Potter laughed. My mother was a powerful witch and it was an honour that she would part with her own wand, even for her son. A thought struck me about the curiosity of magic in general and of wand-magic specifically. How it can connect, like Granger and I had been, and how it can separate, like a wand from its wizard. 'A wand chooses its wizard' is a well-known truth. That it can change allegiance, as my wand had done, is almost unheard of but not contrary to the truth about the choosing. And if even a truly magical thing like a wand can change allegiance …

Her scream drew me out of my thoughts, when the tower of things almost collapsed. I could almost taste her fright in the air. Luckily, Potter caught it with a Finite. But then I really had to pay attention to keep Crabbe from targeting Potter.

Crabbe was a curious person. Very gentle actually, soft-spoken; but a powerful tool with the right indoctrination. I did my best to divert Crabbe from killing him. I struggled, I argued (what a waste); I almost pleaded with him when I fell onto his arm to swerve a curse. I couldn't let him kill Potter; killing the only saviour we had, the only person who could do away with the monster. And what it would do to her, I couldn't fathom.

When Crabbe aimed a killing curse at Granger, I almost screamed in fright. She dove aside from the spell and I had dragged him over from falling on his arm, so that his aim wasn't as good as he would have liked. Then Potter attacked us back and Crabbe hit the wand out of my hand. Now truly desperate without a wand, defence and protection, I yelled in my fear: _"Don't kill him. DON'T KILL HIM." _Fortunately, that was enough to irritate them for a second and Potter was able to disarm Goyle, at least.

The Golden Trio started attacking us and I couldn't blame them. I hid behind a wardrobe, so I wouldn't get in the way and being defenceless, I had to hide anyway. Crabbe threw out a few more Unforgivables, which, thank Merlin, did not hit their targets.

And then everything went up in flames. When I saw the water from Potter's 'Aguamenti' evaporate, I yelled "_Run",_ and grabbed the stunned Goyle to drag him with me. This was no normal fire, I knew, but I still had hope that higher places would be reached last. So I dragged Goyle up a stack of broken desks. I had never worked this hard in my life, against my shaking and screaming muscles, sweat poured from my forehead into my eyes and made them burn as well, and I didn't know if the liquid running down my face was blood or sweat or tears from the smoke in the air. And it didn't matter. As much of a dunderhead as he had always been in our life, I couldn't let Goyle die unconsciously overcome by flames of magical fire. Crabbe, at least, had still been able to run.

But when I had gotten up there and the flames licked up the sides of the precarious tower of wooden desks like fangs of a hungry animal, I couldn't help screaming in fright. I felt like, this was the end. And, even though I was glad that I hadn't run out with the other Slytherins and lined up with Voldemort's supporters, I was afraid that I hadn't done enough good in all my life and that I would have to pay for it. I had saved Harry Potter (and Granger) from being avadad by jumping on Crabbe's arm but since they didn't know that, I wasn't sure if it counted really in the grand scheme of things.

I'm not a hero. I never was. I'm not a grand soul, self-sacrificing, serving the greater good, so I didn't make any vows to change the world if I survived, save the whales, stop the cutting of the rainforest, stop teasing Longbottom or any such thing. But I thought saving Harry Potter should count for at least being allowed to continue to live. And it did, somehow. I could hardly see him for all the smoke when he dove down at me on a broom. Damn you, Potter, will I owe my life to your fucking flying skills? But I took it, of course, the opportunity to get away, even if it meant owing my life to Harry Effing Potter. When you face the options of burning to cinder or owing your worst enemy, you need a grander soul than mine to take certain death.

He tried to pull me up behind him, but since I didn't let go of Goyle, my sweaty hand slipped. And then Weasley swooped down as well and Granger pulled Goyle up on their broom.

"_If we die for them, I'll kill you, Harry." _I heard Weasley yell. And that shook me out of my death fright. If Weasley could keep a cool head, so could I.

"_The door, get to the door, the door!"_ I yelled in Potter's ear after clambering up on his broom. I could barely make out the other broom in front of us through the thick smoke, it was high time. All the more, I panicked when Potter swerved away from the straight way to catch something glittering from the air.

"_What are you doing, what are you doing? The door's that way!" _I screamed seeing a flame serpent coming our way. But before I had finished speaking, Potter was back on course.

We crashed against the wall outside the room but the fresh air filling my lungs was all the salvation that I needed. I fell off the broom and just stayed down, except for the retching and coughing that shook my tortured body. After having been rescued from certain death, I didn't think anybody was going to kill me out in the hallway.

Hermione was safe, Crabbe was dead, Goyle right there. She didn't pay me any attention but I didn't blame her. There were more important things to do than to care for a dubious character like me. Bangs shaking the castle reminded me that the battle was in full swing now.

They were hatching more plans on how to continue. Potter pulled something from his arm, something glittering; the thing he caught when flying us to safety. It looked wrecked, old and full of soot. When Potter held it up, it wailed like it was in pain and leaked a black substance that looked like tar. And then, it broke in two.

"_It must have been fiendfyre," _Granger said. "_Fiendfyre - cursed fire – it's one of the substances that destroy Horcruxes, but I would never, ever have dared to use it …"_ I should hope not, Granger.

"_But don't you realise?" _she continued. I'm sure Potter and Weasley have said something in between but I couldn't be bothered, still trying to catch my breath. She went on: "_This means, if we can just get the snake-" _She broke off, when there were more noises down the corridor and they ran to investigate or to help, the valiant Gryffindors.

Kill the snake, she had said. I took it, it wasn't meant to be a prerogative for Voldemort himself; that meant they were talking about a real snake and there was only one: Nagini. 'That would give him a blow if nothing else was', I remember thinking. He loved his snake. Fiendfyre destroys horcruxes, Hermione had said. And they had Basilisk fangs with them, when they went into the room. Fiendfyre is a truly deadly magical thing. And the venom of a Basilisk is as deadly as poisons come, with only one antidote, Phoenix tears.

Whatever they were out to destroy, horcruxes, must have been some very dark magic. They had broken into Gringotts and Bella had been beside herself, when she thought they had. Something very valuable must have been in her vault, something to do with Voldemort. It had all to do with killing Voldemort, I was sure of it.

And then I made my vow. I wanted them to succeed, wanted to rid the world of the megalomaniac. I was going to protect them during the fight at Hogwarts. I was going to follow them and make sure that they remained unharmed, as much as I could.

It paid off, my vow. A little while later, I had to divert a Death Eater from them approaching because they were highly visible with the green Snargaluff pods and juice on Potter's cloak. They stunned him and I turned around happily, but I think they misconstrued my happiness because somebody, I'm thinking Weasley, punched me out of nowhere. I heard him yell: _"And that's the second time we've saved your life tonight, you two-faced bastard"_. Silly Weasley, of course, they couldn't have known what I was doing. They ran down the staircase into the midst of the fighting. I heard Granger shriek and throw likely a 'Reducto' when Greyback tried to get his fill on a fallen body. Brown, I think. Merlin, Granger, how ironic can life become.

Then, the acromantulas broke in and the trio stopped, trying to find a way out of the hall. I had no idea where they wanted to go, but it was clear they wanted to get around the scramble and out of the Entrance Hall. When the great oaf came running down the stairs and was taken away by the giant spiders, Potter, always the hero, came out from under his cloak and ran behind his great friend, Weasley and Granger right behind him.

I got diverted by another attack that I had to fend off and didn't make it out of the castle in time to see where they went. After exiting the castle, I had to flee before being stamped to mush by a giant barging to the forest.

I lost track of time. That is to say, I had no idea how much time had gone by fighting, defending and saving one's own neck before I saw her again, trying to drag a fellow student out from under another fallen person, likely from the other side of the war. I levitated the Voldemort supporter (I didn't recognize him) from the student (that I didn't recognize either). When I had freed the dead body from the other dead body, she asked: "What are you doing here?" She couldn't look at me and so she didn't.

"Helping you?" I offered irresolutely.

She still looked at the dead body. "Why didn't you leave with the other Slytherins? Line up with the Death Eaters? Fight us to the death?" She was looking for black and white. It makes it easier in a war if you know exactly right from wrong. I was neither.

"I couldn't. I couldn't leave when I saw that Potter was here. That you would likely be here as well. When I saw Crabbe and Goyle sneaking off, I knew they were up to no good. I followed them this time. My time of them following me is over; my family is disgraced after your escape from Malfoy Manor." That wasn't actually quite true but it sounded better.

"What was that in the Room of Requirement?"

"I couldn't let them kill Potter."

Before I could get out any more explanations, the whole Death Eater crowd stepped out of the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort in the lead and Hagrid right behind him, carrying something in his arms.

And the monster spoke.

"_Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone. The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, as will be every member of their family. Come out of the castle, now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live, and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together."_

I felt sick to my stomach. I heard their "No!"s, their despair, not of losing the war but of losing their friend, their student, their saviour, their beacon of hope. I could imagine that Granger had heard a similar sound from me, that night in the classroom. And I finally understood why she could not have left me alone that night: that sound stung to the bone, pierced your heart and if you had any human feeling, left you cold and numb. Any human being would have to react to it. Which only shows, that the Death Eaters had entirely lost their humanity. If they had ever cared for family and friends, this night, the night of the battle, the night we (supposedly) lost Harry Potter, they had lost their connection to life.  
>I saw my parents standing in line with the Death Eaters, my father a beaten man (literally), my mother searching the lines of students opposite with hectic glances. When she saw me standing, not too obviously, outside the Entrance but clearly on the side of the Hogwarts students, she sagged with relief. 'Yes, mother,' I thought, 'I am still alive. I don't know what will happen now, but life I still have.'<p>

Deep down, I knew that Voldemort was lying, that he tried to crush the hope entirely in the remaining survivors. Potter had not been caught fleeing, even I knew that. A git, he had been most of the time to me but he was never a coward. Therefore, when Voldemort continued to degrade Potter's image I almost cheered with the other students when Weasley yelled: _"He beat you!" _

I almost cheered again, when Longbottom shouted: _"Dumbledore's Army!"_ and screamed with the others, when he went up in flame but I bit my lip to not give me away. That had been a wise choice because later, I could slip back in the Hall, when the other fighters came into the Hogwarts grounds and attacked the Death Eaters from the side.

I couldn't contain my scream though, when I saw Longbottom shaking loose from Voldemort's Body-Bind-Curse and pull the Sword of Gryffindor from the depth of the Sorting Hat. But that scream went unheard because of the roaring sound of a battle, of magical people and magical creatures flooding into the Hogwarts grounds, fighting. Yeah, I knew what the Sword was. Not only had there been plenty of talk with the mess about the Chamber of Secrets, but the Sword of Gryffindor simply was a valuable historical artefact of Wizarding history. Even if Gryffindor was not my house, I was of course well versed in anything to do with the Wizarding culture. And I knew that only a true Gryffindor could pull his Sword from his hat. Yeah, I knew that, too. What, did you think, Granger had been the only person to ever read 'Hogwarts, a History'? The only thing that surprised me, of course, was that Longbottom showed his true colours like that. He killed Nagini with one clear slice separating the head and with that eliminated the last remaining Horcrux, clearing the way for Potter to fulfil the prophecy and free us of the monster. In that moment, I wished I could be of more help. Merlin, all that heroism was contagious.

The onslaught of fighters forced everybody back into the castle and that was where I could finally help. I shot my fair share of curses and spells at the Death Eaters, as far as I could see and not be seen. It wouldn't have been beneficial to be exposed as a turncoat in the final battle. I didn't think of myself as a traitor; I simply wanted to help getting rid of the snake monster. And honestly, when faced with grown men and women who fight almost children for an antiquated idea, what would you have done?

So, I ducked my way through the fighting crowd, sent out shielding charms over fighters of the light, because they were easiest to hide, and weaved through a sea of fighting house-elves to hide inside the Great Hall. I caught my mother by the sleeve as she was running headlessly through the hall, searching for me. She calmed immediately as she saw me and together, we got a hold of my father.

We hid in the back of the hall, watching the meddle unfold: Voldemort in the middle, fighting three on one and not succumbing, and Bellatrix fighting Granger, the Weaselette and Loony Lovegood. My stomach clenched seeing Granger and her friends in dire straits. I slyly sent another 'Protego' over their forms from where I stood, pulling Ginny back from a green stream of light just in time. Just before the Weasel mother entered the fray, pushing everybody else out of the way. Yes, yes, I know their actual names. Who wouldn't?

My Aunt roared with laughter, when she saw her new opponent but I wasn't sure if it was rectified. As my mother can testify, a fighting mother is a force to be reckoned with.

Bellatrix soon realized the same thing, when Mrs Weasley was not as easy to fight off as expected. And then, when she laughed over Mrs Weasley's fury about her teasing, I knew it was over. I was not as masterful a dueller as my Aunt Bella was at the time but even I could see the huge defensive opening that she left in front of her chest. And Molly Weasley took it. And Bellatrix fell.

I couldn't say I was sorry. She might have been family but she was not a caring relative, as you can imagine. Aunt Bella had been a waste of humanity. How she turned out that way, I never knew. I am certain that my mother felt a tinge of regret over losing her sister but the world was better off without her.

And then everybody watched as the final fight unfolded. How Potter stopped Voldemort's intended slaughter of Mrs Weasley for killing his long-time lover (or whatever they were doing when they were alone in the dark), how he exposed himself to Voldemort and immediately started to circle with him in a perfect Yin and Yang circle, black and white, dark and light, good and evil, forward and backward, around and around. We couldn't take our eyes of the two; the whole crowd inside the Great Hall stopped and stared.

Enraptured and incredulous like everybody else, I listened to Potter's explanation. For once in my life, I felt severely humbled over the fact how Dumbledore had set up this final battle from the grave, how he had prepared Potter without telling him everything, by letting him find out for himself. I always thought, I was a clever one but this kind of insight, I wasn't sure I could ever achieve.

I was floored, when I heard how Dumbledore had set up his own death, how he had intended Snape to be the master of the Elder Wand, and how Snape had been in love with Potter's mother all his life.

I almost choked when Potter mentioned that I had been the master of the Elder Wand for months, without ever holding it in my hands, by disarming Dumbledore up on the tower. I realized the importance of him, Potter, having taken my wand with him, the night he escaped our Manor. And I prayed, the first time in my life, I prayed to Merlin that Potter had really beaten me and that he was right about his conclusions and that he was the true master of the Elder Wand.

I felt my mother clutch me when Voldemort mentioned he could attend to me after he would have killed Potter. But I knew better. She hadn't noticed how it came to pass that night at the Manor but I knew that Potter had disarmed me and was master of my wand. I had felt it in the Room of Requirements that my wand no longer belonged to me. I only hoped, there in the final battle, that the same went for all wand allegiances.

And then with a bang and golden flames, just when the sun came over the horizon, I saw Potter finish Voldemort with his trademark 'Expelliarmus' and a rebounding killing curse from Voldemort himself. I saw the Elder Wand fly out of Voldemort's hand and glint in the sunlight before Potter took possession of the world's most dangerous wand, while Voldemort keeled over and fell to the ground with a thud that suited his lifeless form well.

For a second, the Great Hall was utterly silent, and then the roaring of the crowd erupted and I was screaming with them. For once, I screamed my heart out because I had lost, because my side had lost, the cause, that was never mine, was over and Potter had showed once again that the faith of people in him was right.

Of course, I didn't run forward with the other jubilants to congratulate Potter. I quietly took my parents' arms and dragged them to a bench where we could rest the legs that were giving out under us. My mother hugged me and my father hugged both of us and in this way we stayed for quite a while.

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG**

When they left the Great Hall, Harry hidden under the cloak between them, Hermione couldn't help to glance sideways at the Malfoys. Narcissa was clutching her son and Lucius was clutching them both, shaking and looking totally drained. Hermione understood. Their whole world had come crashing down around their ears. Heck, she had saved her world and even she was still shaking in her shoes. She caught Draco's eyes following her and her companions, but couldn't give him more than a blink of recognition. He lowered his head and she could see how he hid a small smile. 'I'll be back', she thought, hoping he would catch her mental message. Then she went with Harry out into the hallway from where they proceeded to the headmaster's office.

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG **

A while later, after leaving the Headmaster's office Harry turned to Gryffindor Tower, Ron in tow, to search out their four-poster beds. Hermione stood where she was, gnawing on the inside of her mouth. Sleep sounded perfect just about now, but there was something she had to do first, somebody she had to see.

When Harry turned questioningly, she said: "I'll be right behind you. There is somebody I need to see first." Harry held her gaze and waited for more explanations. Hermione just gave him a pleading look. Harry relaxed and shrugged his shoulders. If there was any person he trusted irrevocably, it was Hermione Granger.

Hermione turned, leaving the boys behind and went back to the Great Hall where people were gathered just as much as before. The Malfoys, still in shock as everybody else, had not moved. She could see them through the entrance but did not want to attract more attention by entering the hall again. Instead, she stayed in the shadow outside the hall, waiting for Draco to notice her presence. It did not take long. After only a few seconds, he raised his head searchingly and observed the people in the Great Hall. When he couldn't find what he was looking for, he turned to his mother and spoke quietly with her. She clutched his arm tighter and did not want to let him go. He calmed her with a hand on her arm; Hermione suspected, he told her, he would be right back. She held her breath when he swept out into the entrance Hall, searching for her. It took him only seconds to join her in the shadows under a staircase. He came close to her but kept a safe distance at the same time. They were not friends, they would not hug.

"Hi," Hermione breathed.

"Hi," he replied, not daring to look at her.

Hermione searched his face and saw nothing but turmoil, even though she couldn't see his eyes. She suspected they would be stormy grey, reflecting his inner state.

"Malfoy," she addressed him. He lifted his head a little, but not entirely.

"Granger," he replied quietly. Hermione sighed. Alright then, she understood. She would have to do the first step.

"I'm glad you survived." Hermione's clear voice filled the tiny space they hid in.

"Why?" He would still not look at her. Hermione grinned.

"Because I would have missed your antagonism."

He snorted. "Yeah, right."

Still grinning, she said: "No, really. Banter is only half as much fun when nobody really gets your hackles up."

"But school is over, Granger. I'll be going to Azkaban if I'm lucky, and you'll be the celebrated war heroine on Potter's side. I figure, you won't see much of me and be busy with your life around all your war hero friends."

"Malfoy." She sighed again. "Draco, look at me." Reluctantly, he raised his head, looking at her warily.

"Thank you."

Malfoy was baffled. "What?"

Hermione moved a step closer. "Thank you."

Malfoy leaned back, expecting this to be a trick. "What are you thanking ME for? All I ever did was giving you dirt. And insults."

Hermione shook her head. "And at the Manor?" His eyes widened. "What at the Manor?" he asked quietly.

"I've felt you." Hermione paused. "I've felt your magic on mine. Even through all this pain, I felt your magic connecting with mine and then the pain became substantially less and I could at least think and breathe again."

Draco didn't say anything. Of all the cowardly and cruel things he had done in his youth, she picked up on the one moment he had thought of somebody else for once. He didn't deserve her gratefulness. He had done so much to her that this one moment did not tip the scale considerably. He figured karma would want some kind of repayment for all his cruelty to his Non-Slytherin class mates. He waited for the other shoe to drop, for her to continue, to say what she really wanted from him. He was a condemned man, he had fought on a side of the war and his side had lost. He was only waiting for the verdict.

"Did you really have to endure the full Cruciatus more than once?" she asked quietly. He looked indifferent.

"You get used to it," he said without inflection. He heard her swallow.

Then he felt her hands on his face. His head whipped up, looking into her horrified eyes.

"Draco, don't ever say that. Oh, Merlin." He shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, it's true. I figure, Aunt Bella actually enjoyed it. She and Voldemort had something special going." Hermione looked disgusted.

"Ugh, I didn't need to know that. " She made a retching sound and Malfoy couldn't help but grin and chortle. Then he sighed, closed his eyes and leaned into her hands.

"What's going to happen to me now, Granger? I am on the losing side of a war. People will never forgive me, even if I ever get out of Azkaban. "

Her hands moved down to his shoulders and he missed the warmth in his face immediately. He opened his eyes and saw her looking at him thoughtfully.

"I don't know, Draco. But I wouldn't let go of all hope just yet. You were a minor after all for most of the war. And in the end, you just followed. In a trial, I can testify that you helped, that you had your doubts and Harry would to the same with regards to Professor Dumbledore's death. Your mother helped, too, did you know that?" He looked shocked and she smiled.

"Yes, she lied to Voldemort and said that Harry was dead, there in the forest, giving him an advantage. He just told me. Harry said, at that point she just wanted to know if you were alive and unhurt." Tears pricked his eyes. He just wanted to cuddle in his mother's arms, close his eyes and not wake up again. Or Granger's arms. Did you get the "not wake up again" part?

Hermione pulled him onto her shoulder and held his shaking body. 'This is becoming a habit,' she thought, then smiled while she stroked the still silky locks of platinum blond hair.

"One step at a time, Draco," she breathed in his ear. "One step at a time." His arms closed around her and he held her so tight in his embrace that she could hardly breathe. She still held out for many minutes until he calmed. Only when she almost fainted from fatigue did he let her go and they parted ways for the time being.

**DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG**


	10. Aftermath

_A/N: No worries, MrS. mOOny86, I said I'll be gone for a few days, not for weeks. Here's the next instalment. A short one, but necessary._

_Disclaimer: The Harry Potter world belongs to JK Rowling and whoever she gave permission to use it (like Warner Brothers). I'm just borrowing her characters and do my own plot. No compensation is made from this, except for your kind reviews _

****

**10. The Aftermath**

The next weeks were spent celebrating and mourning; to celebrate Harry's triumph over the Dark Lord and to bury the dead; to heal and to cry. After a week of recovery at the Burrow, in which Molly Weasley made them sleep and eat like there was going to be no tomorrow (old habits die hard), Harry, Ron and Hermione started planning how to help with the cleaning up and rebuilding. George, still in shock from his twin brother's death, shook his head.

"Harry, you're mental. You saved us from You-know-who and his minions; now let others do something productive and do the menial work."

Harry frowned in response. "No, George. I'm trying NOT to become mental. After the year in the woods and not knowing what the next day will bring, a little menial work is just what the doctor ordered. Helping to bring order back, doing something entirely normal is just what I need." He tightened his arm around Ginny who hung from his shoulder like she had grown roots there.

After Harry had slept for two whole days at Hogwarts, they had gone home to the Burrow where the rest of the family awaited them. Molly had tried to hold her back but Ginny had run across the field upon their sight on the border of the property, straight into Harry's arms. He had held her tight and buried his face in her hair. Hermione had smiled across their backs at Ron who had smiled back and taken her hand. Hand in hand, they had wandered over to the Weasley family, leaving Harry and Ginny alone. Nobody had asked any questions and just let them be.

For the next two days the three best friends had to recount their story to the entire family and parts of it to all people dropping by, wanting to see the famous Harry Potter, finally the Conqueror of the Dark Lord. Ginny had not moved from his side during that time and Ron and Hermione expected that she had even stayed there during most of the nights but since she shared her room with Hermione and she was in her bed when she went to sleep and back when they awoke, nobody said anything.

Ron and Hermione on the other hand took it very slow. Their budding relationship started with long silent walks and embraces. They went through the fields behind the Burrow for hours and simply sat down and looked at the landscape, overlooking fields of wheat and other crop that had grown into wide fields of green spikes, waving in the warm summer wind. They either sat side by side with Hermione leaning her head on Ron's shoulder or Hermione sat between Ron's long legs, leaning back on his chest, both breathing deep the soft air of early summer, enjoying their quiet time together and that they could be.

Draco Malfoy sat in his Wiltshire part of the country and likewise looked at rowing fields. But he sat alone, soul-searching in the farthest corner of the Malfoy Estate gardens where no one but the gardener ever went.

And he thought about the dark times they had barely escaped and the power of will; about compassion and greed; about reaching out and forcing compliance; about goodwill and destruction; and about how to make reparations.

And when he had reached the conclusion that he had to work for forgiveness, he turned back towards the Manor.

****

**Draco's conversation **

_(A/N: this is an artificial divider and I don't like it but it becomes too convoluted visually otherwise; formatting problem (eye roll)_

"Father"

Lucius Malfoy sat in his study, bent over papers that he had to prepare before his long absence in Azkaban. He had been given three days of home visitation to bring his estate in order. There were guards in their home, almost watching him every second of it. Right at the moment, they were waiting outside his study door. They didn't make it a secret that they were watching Narcissa and Draco as well. In their opinion, it was just a matter of time until these two would be brought to justice. It was already only due to Harry's interference that Narcissa and Draco had been allowed to return home. Lucius had been apprehended immediately the day after the final battle and carried off to Azkaban.

The Dementors had been removed as guards due to their dubious alliance with Voldemort and replaced by Wizard guards. These new guards were not friendly towards the prisoners in alignment with the Dark Lord but they were sufficiently professional to not let their dislike go beyond an occasional push. Therefore, Lucius was in relatively good shape, mentally and physically.

"Draco" He regarded his now grown son in front of his desk. Draco looked so much like he himself at that age. But he was such a different person.

"We need to talk." Draco's sharp tone of voice brought him out of his reverie.

"What about, my son?" He returned his son's burning gaze with appropriate calmness. Was this the moment when Draco was spreading his wings and defy his parentage?

"About how we are going to fix the mess that we made to the Wizarding World. And to our own legacy."

Lucius slowly closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Yes. This was the moment.

He opened his eyes again to look calmly at his son. "Maybe we should consult your mother as well?" Draco sneered. "If you like."

Lucius gave a short nod. "Miffy" he called an elf that appeared immediately. "Call your Mistress to the study, please." The elf nodded, "Yes, Master" and vanished with a puff.

The elder Malfoy turned to his son again. "A drink, Draco, while we wait?"

Draco Malfoy shook his head stiffly. "No, thank you."

His father hmm'd and got up to fix himself a firewhiskey. Before he could sit down again the door opened and his wife came in.

"Lucius, what is it?" She sat down in the armchair next to her son and took his hand in a motherly gesture. The husband returned to his chair behind the desk, his drink in hand, and addressed his wife: "Draco would like to talk about making reparations and I would like you to hear it as well."

The blond woman turned to her son, slightly alarmed. "Draco?"

Draco pulled his hand from his mother's grip and addressed them both. "I would just like to know, how you imagined we could fix this chaos that your master left us in after his more than timely demise?" Lucius raised an eyebrow.

"My master? Timely demise?"

Draco fixed his gaze on his father's. "Yes, your master. I stopped considering him my master when he ordered me to kill an innocent man under threat of harming my mother if I did not succeed. An innocent man who did nothing wrong but care for other people, I might add. And it was high time that the monster was finished, don't you think?"

Narcissa was aghast. "Draco, what are you talking about? The Dark Lord would have given us the highest honours."

Draco scoffed. "Don't delude yourself, mother, it is not becoming. Tell me why you defied him at the last minute, lying about Potter's demise?"

Narcissa blanched and inhaled sharply. "How do you know that?"

Draco looked at her sternly. "I have my ways, you should know. But tell me, do you still believe Voldemort's bullshit about demolishing the muggleborns to preserve our blood purity?" Both his parents flinched as he said the name out loud. Draco snorted. "It's about time you started using his name, because everybody else does. It will look highly suspicious if you cling to your ways and show reverence to the old snake."

Narcissa Malfoy was from a good old wizarding family, the Blacks. In its pureblooded ways, the children of each Black generation had belonged to the best and highest stock. Her upbringing had therefore been very traditional to enable her and her sisters to marry into the other highest pureblooded families. Due to her upbringing, she was able to face almost anything without losing her countenance and with her head held high. That was what had enabled her to lie to Voldemort without a second thought.

But she could not lie to her son in this case. "Well, it is hard to break with old traditions, with what you've been told all your life, with what is supposed to be the highest value."

Draco didn't relent: "But do you still believe that we should not mingle with the Muggleborns or Halfbloods to maintain our magical heritage?"

Lucius interfered. "If you have something to tell us, by all means do it, Draco. Do not put your mother in a vice."

Draco turned on his father. "No, you tell me if you still believe this crap that will make our magic disappear in a hundred years. "

Both his parents inhaled sharply this time. "Explain," his father ordered.

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Don't tell me, you didn't know that even the purest of bloodlines had extramarital bastards brought up as their own because the pureblooded marriage remained childless; that extramarital bastards were the only way to help the bloodline to keep the family alive. And that as a result we haven't been truly "pureblooded" for quite a while. It's been going on for hundreds of years. We already would have died out as a species, we magical purebloods, if not for these healthy blood injects and we will die out in three to five generations if we breed only amongst purebloods."

Lucius regarded his enraged son shrewdly whereas Narcissa blanched again and looked to her husband. "What makes you say that?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Father, please think. You want me to go and find all the cases in the Malfoypedigree where Lady Malfoy remained childless for decades after the marriage et puis violà, all of a sudden there was a son of prodigal quality? And calculate how many pureblood families there are and how long it would take until they are one big family through intermarriage and then what, we start marrying our cousins and sisters? And what do you think will happen then? Care to explain why I have no siblings and why it took you five years to conceive? And why there are only about five families left that have daughters that I could potentially marry without getting too close to our own family?"

Narcissa hid her head in her hands. Lucius shot up. "See what you did to her. I didn't teach you to disrespect your mother."

Draco snorted. "Father, sit down. You know what I went through for my mother. That counts as respect for a life time. So, tell me, did you know? Or did you give your brain away with your dignity, when you bent down before Voldemort (he disregarded his parents' renewed flinch) with the other idiots, who wanted a bigger slice of the pie than they already have? You know what I call that? Greed. Nice and simple. We have more money that we can spend in ten lifetimes, what can you possibly want?"

"I wanted the best standing in society for my family, I want them to bow before my wife and son because we are important, I want them to treat us like royalty because we are."

Draco was shocked. This was worse than he had imagined. His mother also looked shocked at her husband who was breathing hard and leaned forward on his desk.

Draco cleared his throat and collected himself. "What you want, Father, is respect. But respect is not given by the suppressed, which is exactly what Voldemort (his parents had already learned enough to only duck their heads this time) would have done. Respect is earned. The Malfoy landlords centuries ago had respect, because they cared for their tenants. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. I would like to earn back some respect for our family. For my future, I don't want to be an outcast in society because you blindly followed a halfblooded madman preaching about bloodpurity. I will help with the reconstruction and the chase of other Death Eaters if they let me. What are you going to do besides sitting in Azkaban for your misdeeds?"

Lucius' eyes almost bulged out of his sockets. "You will participate in catching fellow Death Eaters?"

Draco looked calmly at his father who seemed to be close to a fit. "Yes. I think my knowledge about them will help greatly."

Inwardly, Lucius seethed but outwardly his face remained cold: "Then you are nothing but a turncoat traitor and I have nothing further to say to you."

Draco smiled tiredly. "Father, you don't understand. Your time is done. You will spend the next twenty years in Azkaban, as reparations for your sins against society. There are not many charges against me, with any luck after a short while, I will be able to live here as a free man. The time of the Death Eaters is over. I want to be able to live my life without always having to watch my back. And I want the same for mother. You won't be here to protect her."

"Have you turned into a muggle lover like that old fool Dumbledore now?" Lucius sneered at his son. Narcissa gasped.

Draco glared at his father. "Don't do that, Father. If you want respect, don't speak ill of the dead. And no, I have not 'turned into a muggle lover'."

Narcissa grabbed her sons arm. "Draco, don't tell me you are dating a muggle."

Draco rolled his eyes, then spoke to his mother. "We were at war until two weeks ago. There was no dating going on amidst the fighting, you see? And if and when I start dating again, I will not pick up a tramp on the side of the road, just to defy you. I will start with what I know, of course. I can promise you that I'll date pureblooded girls but I cannot promise you, that they are the only ones I will date. And I cannot promise you, who I will marry. I will try to keep up the tradition of our family but I can't promise. And before I start dating, I want to help with the rebuilding."

He looked at his father again sternly.

"I will have to atone for your misdeeds and the reputation that you brought to the family. So, don't you tell me what I am and what I can or cannot do. Because I will have to be the responsible one from now on."

With his last words he put a hand on his mother's arm who stiffened but did not shake him off.

"Now the question is, will you two help me or are you on your own?"

Oh, yes, it was certainly the moment where his grown son took flight.

****

**Hermione's POV:**

The trial for Lucius Malfoy had been a fait accompli. There had been no doubt about his guilt. The only question had been, how long he was going to be imprisoned in Azkaban to make up for his dark doings, 15, 20 or 25 years or longer.

I hadn't been at his hearing. I hadn't known if Draco was going to be there and I hadn't wanted to see him on the day his family was being ripped apart. And I had had nothing to add to the fact that the older Malfoy had harmed countless wizards, witches and muggles. I had no sympathy for a man who followed a megalomaniac wanting to rid the world of non-magical people because he had a father complex. The megalomaniac, that is. Maybe Lucius Malfoy, too, who knows? But I didn't need to see his conviction, which was certain as the sun coming up tomorrow, for gratification. It was a given that he would not receive any less than 20 years in Azkaban and an enormous fine of several million galleons.

I went to the trials of Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, though. Not only because I was going to testify as a witness. You will understand that I had an inherent interest in the man whose development away from the darkness I had closely followed.

For simplicity reasons, they were held one after the other. The most important moments will forever be in my mind.

Kingsley Shacklebolt as the acting Minister of Magic was overseeing the hearings, and kept the Wizengamot under tight control. He didn't allow any unqualified comments regarding the defendants. He had even made certain that pureblood loving members of the Wizard community were in the trial, to guarantee that the Malfoys were not going to be slaughtered by Voldemort opponents.

"Narcissa Black Malfoy, you are accused of helping the Dark Wizard He-who-must not-be-named in kidnapping and torturing muggles and muggleborns. What say you?"

Narcissa Malfoy, an imposing figure in morning-sky-blue robes with her hair neatly done and her face pale but aristocratically calm, looked at her folded hands. But when she answered, her voice carried clearly through the courtroom: "If you consider standing by my husband and not defying his actions (at this, the other pureblooded witches in the audience winced) when our cellar was used as a holding for captives, then yes, I am guilty of your charges." There was a question from a member of the Wizengamot.

"You have never tortured or captivated or harmed another witch or wizard or muggle yourself?"

"No"

"Be careful of what you say, we will clarify for ourselves if you speak the truth."

"Please, do." Narcissa stated.

Silence ensued. Then Minister Shacklebolt raised his baritone voice again.

"Are there any witnesses who would like to speak against or on behalf of Narcissa Malfoy?"

"Yes, Minister." Every member of the Wizengamot turned their head as one to the left where Harry Potter had stood up. He stepped forward to stand in front of the benches where the Wizengamot was seated.

"Harry Potter. What an honour." Shacklebolt lowered his head in a greeting toward Harry. Harry returned the gesture.

"Will you speak for or against Mrs Malfoy?"

Harry's voice was just as clear as Narcissa's. "I will speak in her favour for it was she who lied to Voldemort and gave me an advantage to defeat him." He explained what she had done during the night of the final battle more fully and when he had finished every face of the Wizengamot members looked stunned. Shacklebolt confirmed.

"Are you saying the she lied boldly to He-who-must-not-be-named to protect your life knowing what the consequences would be should she be discovered?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. And he had a name, Voldemort did. You could even call him Tom Riddle. Start using it; it'll help with the healing."

"Erm, yes, Mr Potter, thank you."

He turned to his fellow wizards and witches in the benches of the courtroom.

"We will deliberate now. If the witnesses and defendants will wait outside the courtroom, please?"

Draco and Narcissa were guided outside by the new Azkaban guards. Other witnesses or curious onlookers, representatives of the press, the Weasley's, Harry and I left the courtroom behind them and had to wait separately from them. Even though the Malfoys were surrounded by their guards, I tried to catch Draco's eyes to give him a nod of support. But he wouldn't raise his head to look at me or anybody else. Clenching his jaw, he didn't even speak to his mother, so completely lost in thought.

Narcissa was sentenced to a hefty fine and a year of house arrest and a year of community service. She was to help in orphanages, soup kitchens and St. Mungo's.

And then, it was time for Draco Malfoy's hearing.

"You are accused of the intention of ending the life of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, of poisoning fellow students in your sixth year at Hogwarts, of participating in the torture of fellow students in your seventh year at Hogwarts and of hindering Harry James Potter in his undertaking of eliminating He-who, erm, Voldemort," Kingsley corrected himself. "What say you?"

Malfoy didn't look up and stared straight ahead when he said in a monotone voice: "Guilty as charged."

I stood up. "Yes, Ms Granger?" Kingsley addressed me.

"I would like to make a statement regarding the guilt of Draco Malfoy."

Kingsley nodded. I made my way to the front.

I let my eyes roam over the justice of the Wizarding world. They looked curiously back at me. "With regard to the intent to kill Professor Dumbledore I call to witness for the defence, Harry James Potter." A gigantic gasp was heard in the crowd. Harry sighed but stood up and joined me at the front.

He nodded to me. "Hermione?"

I nodded back: "Harry." Harry looked at me piercingly. I inhaled and spoke with a clear voice. "Harry, I'd like you to recount what you saw and heard the night Professor Dumbledore was killed."

Harry exhaled and started his tale: "I was on the Astronomy tower the night Albus Dumbledore was killed. We had just come back from a mission to find a horcrux in which he had weakened himself tremendously. I was hidden under my invisibility cloak and Dumbledore stunned me when Draco Malfoy came onto the platform. Because of that he was able to disarm Dumbledore and although he was set to end the life of him, he didn't do it. I would even say, he couldn't do it." With his last words, he had looked over to Draco who kept his head low as if he was indifferent to his own fate.

Kingsley qualified: "He went there to kill Dumbledore?"

"But he didn't." Harry said with austerity.

"But he did poison fellow students."

"An honest mistake" Harry fell into his sentence. He continued: "I'm not saying we should forgive everybody who goes around poisoning his or her fellow citizens but likewise, we shouldn't try to put away everybody who scared or angered us in the last ten, twelve years. I'm sure there are more worthy Death Eaters who need to be put away."

"Thank you, Mr Potter."

I started to say my piece when Ron stood up. I silenced him with one glance and he sat back down again.

"No, Mr Weasley, what were you going to say?" Kingsley called him back.

Ron blustered: "He gave us hell during school."

The Wizengamot chuckled in its entirety. I wondered if you lose your identity if you do too much as a group.

"That is not a crime, Ron." I pushed.

At that, Draco and I exchanged one glance. Since I was standing and he was sitting, I was basically looking down my nose at him, for a change. If the situation hadn't been so dire for him, I was sure he would have smirked up at me in appreciation of the droll of it.

No other witnesses against his deeds stood up to make a statement.

I made mine: "I can testify that Draco Malfoy had serious doubts about the dogma of Voldemort. If necessary, I can submit some of my memories as I witnessed him expressing his doubts. He was a child who aimed to please, and save his parents."

"A child, as were you," rumbled Kingsley.

"Yes, as was I. But I didn't have a father who wanted me to become a Death Eater and follow the Dark Lord and a mother whose life was threatened if I didn't follow Voldemort. A father who has been sentenced already."

Kingsley Shacklebolt nodded thoughtfully. He let me continue.

"Draco Malfoy helped in the Manor by not identifying us, and he helped us in the Room of Requirements, he prevented Crabbe and Goyle from killing us."

Harry agreed to that. "Yes, I second that."

The members of the Wizengamot muttered amongst each other. It was a two-sided game. Either, we were lying for Draco Malfoy and everybody would wonder why, or we spoke the truth and then everybody would make life hell for Draco for being such a traitor to his family teachings and the Dark Lord. He couldn't win and I didn't blame him for sitting in the courtroom with a face like a mask. He could not show emotions in any case.

Kingsley Shacklebolt examined Harry and me sceptically. Then he spoke to Malfoy:

"Well, the guilt of Lucius Malfoy is quite clear. With your mother and you, it is not. The Wizengamot and I will council. Please, wait outside."

In the end, Draco got off with community service for a year, to help him learn that other people were worth something as well, and another hefty fine for the Malfoy family. It seemed that the wizard community wanted to take the money for the rebuilding from the perpetrators and scape goats. He was also ordered to help with rebuilding, hands on work. I was glad. It would do him good to work with other people.

He received his sentence stoically and without blinking an eye. He bowed his head in acceptance and then left the courtroom on his own. I wasn't sure when I would see him again or if I would ever see him again. And I wasn't sure either, how I felt about it. After all, we were connected. Even though he was arrogant, snarky and insulting and I didn't want to befriend him, we had shared some special magical history. And to think that he walked out of my life like he walked out of the courtroom, back straight and his head held high, I couldn't help but feel somewhat bereft.

****

_A/N: I am not quite satisfied with this chapter. It is a filler, a connection between the war and the Harry Potter books as we know it and what's to come. A necessary connection, but a filler none the less. I could have stretched out the interaction between the people we know and love, to make it livelier. But I wanted to keep the focus on Draco's development. You won't have to wait long. He'll be back right the next chapter._

_But while writing Chapter 14 I made a saving error and lost four days of work (don't ask). I'll likely have to rewrite it (fortunately, it's still in my head) and it will take a little longer. Therefore, I'll stretch my updates a bit to once a week. The future chapters (after chapter 11) turn out to be more work than I anticipated. They'll be a lot longer than I originally sketched them, too. Something to look forward to. _

_And as we are on writing difficulties, I apologize but the fanfiction uploading program does for a reason unknown not like my nice DMHG dividers. Since it doesn't like empty lines as dividers either, the text runs into each other at times. I'll have to find a new solution but since this is my third time uploading and I'd rather spend my time to develop the story further I'm giving up for now. Be patient with me._

_As usual: let me know what you think._

_Cheers_

_M_


	11. Rebuilding

_A/N: Woohoo, I recovered, that is to say, rewrote the part that I lost in chapter 14 and am now on my way again. I'll give you the next part. _

_And to say again: I can see you, people. My story receives way more hits than remarks. You don't have to write a thought out critic of the story. Just tell me what you like or don't like. Is it too obvious, too far removed, is it typical or OOC, just a one-liner, come on, everybody can do that. The people who do write a review like it very much (thank you, CC, I like PMs, too), but what about the others? _

_Oh, and I'm trying a new thing for dividers (thanks to Bex-chan). Let's see how that works._

_._

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**11. Rebuilding**

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The next day, the headline in the Daily Prophet read: "Community service and house arrest for Death Eater son and wife". In the article, of course, there were the pros and cons against punishing the family members of known Death Eaters.

They already had the discussion over the dinner table at the Burrow the previous night. Ron flew off the handle as usually because he thought Malfoy got off too lightly. Molly was flustered, not knowing what to think. She meandered between the poor Malfoy boy and the detriment of the Death Eaters and Voldemort for the community as such. Arthur Weasley was quiet and did not want to share his opinion and Harry and Hermione simply related the circumstances their witnessing had been based upon. They somewhat shared into Mr Weasley's sentiment. George to everybody's surprise ended the discussion with a quiet remark:

"He may have been a git during our school years but even if we put him away for life in Azkaban, that's not going to bring Fred back."

"Or Remus and Tonks," added Harry quietly.

Nobody knew what to say after that and they finished their dinner quietly and Hermione, Ron and Harry left soon after to go to Harry's house at Grimmauld's Place. They each occupied a room for the time being, but Hermione had found her own apartment and was going to move in next week. As much as she liked spending time with her best friends, Grimmauld's Place was a bachelor household and she liked her independence. She would have free access to Harry's house anytime if she needed company.

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It didn't say exactly in the newspaper, where and when the Malfoys were to start working, therefore Hermione was more than surprised when she saw Draco Malfoy already a few days later.

Because a few days later in the Atrium of the Ministry, Harry Potter was talking with Gawain Robards, head of Aurors.

"With all due respect, Mr Potter, I appreciate you wanting to help but you are bunch of children."

Harry growled. "And this is the child that took care of Voldemort." He disregarded the flinching of all people surrounding them, including Robards himself. "And I didn't see many aurors there at the final battle of Hogwarts. So, don't you tell me to back off. We will participate in catching the remaining Death Eaters at large if you want to or not. I just wanted to offer that we do it together. But if you don't want to, we can do it on our own."

He turned, and had walked half way down the atrium toward the exits, Hermione, Ron and other DA members behind him when a clear voice stopped him.

"Care for some assistance, Potter?" Harry stopped in his tracks at the sound of the voice of his former enemy. Malfoy leaned against a pillar of to the right.

All heads turned, faces frowning and foreheads furrowed. Hermione, who stood closest to his side of the hall, gave a small smile in his direction that nobody could see. Harry asked warily: "What kind of assistance, Malfoy?" The blond pushed off from the pillar, slumbered over and stood in front of Harry, gazing at him unaffectedly.

"Well, maybe I remember a few Death Eater hideouts. That knowledge could come in handy."

Ron jumped in heatedly: "We don't need the help of your likes." Hermione held him back with her hand: "Ron, don't." Ron strained against the hold. "Let me go, Hermione. I'll show the ferret how much we need him." Supportive murmur from the DA members behind them was heard.

Malfoy's face became hard: "Maybe a talk with fewer people is possible?"

Ron built himself up in front of the blond former adversary: "We have no secrets from our friends."

But Harry nodded. "Okay. Meet me on the Level Two in ten minutes. There's a room we can use." He then turned to the people behind him. "We'll meet in an hour at my house. You remember the address." He grinned. Everybody nodded and turned to leave.

When Harry, Ron and Hermione made it up to the second floor a few minutes later, Draco Malfoy was already sitting in the assigned room, a former, now enlarged broom cupboard between the Auror's common office and Arthur Weasley's former office, looking slightly nervous. When he saw them come in, he sneered: "I was hoping I could talk with you alone, Potter. I wasn't aware that you still needed bodyguards." He looked Hermione up and down. She snorted in response.

Harry frowned. "These are my friends and they get to hear everything I hear. So, all of us or none of us, your choice."

Malfoy glared at Ron, sighed and nodded his agreement. "If he stays quiet."

Ron flared up: "You don't get to decide that." Hermione stretched out her hand and calmed him again. She spoke: "Look, how about we just let him talk without too many interruptions and then we can decide after we have all information what to do." She gazed at Harry with her eyebrows raised. Harry nodded. "Yes, that may be best." He glared at Ron pointedly who nodded reluctantly as well.

They sat down next to each other, across from Malfoy.

Harry spoke again: "Well, Malfoy, why do you want to help?"

Malfoy sighed, looking down. "You know about what I was supposed to do in sixth year, right?"

"And what you did, yeah." Draco looked up. Harry's face was stone cold. No quarter given. He sighed again, glanced very quickly at Hermione and continued quietly.

"He held my mother. He threatened to end her life and mine when I didn't do as I was told. I managed to fix the cabinet and let the Death Eaters in. I was appalled when I saw Greyback coming through. At that moment, I realized that it was no game; that they were out for blood and power and that it didn't count whether you were a child or not. It was never about blood purity, it was only about power and domination. They could have also picked redheads to dominate. Sorry, Weasley, or blond ones. It didn't matter one bit, who was the targeted group and it was about suppressing the group and nothing else." He paused briefly to collect his thoughts. Then he continued as quietly as before.

"Blood purity is a concept condemned to fail. If we really had a society where only purebloods were allowed to have children, magic would disappear in few generations."

At this Hermione nodded. Harry looked questioningly over at her. She explained. "Rules of genetics, Harry. Long story short: If two donors are two genetically alike, illnesses will develop and kill them off before they become fertile. Think European monarchies, they are all interrelated. Their dominant trades will disappear. To carry on you need fresh blood every few generations."

Malfoy looked at her contemplatively and took up his train of thought again: "Thus, it was all a bunch of crap. And after I realized that, I couldn't kill our headmaster. I thought, maybe he had been up to something with his muggle loving. Perhaps, we were the wrong ones. I had been so proud that I managed what I was sent to do, although I had been set up to fail. I am not stupid; I knew they wanted me to fail. I felt rectified when I showed them wrong. But I was shocked and relieved when Snape did the killing. Shocked because I had my doubts and relieved because Dumbledore needed to die for my mother to live. And it confirmed that Snape was on our side and put my world right again. With all my doubts I wouldn't have survived a fortnight with Voldemort in our house. He could smell doubt like a bloodhound. I've seen the treatment of people who started to doubt." He shuddered.

When Malfoy said 'Voldemort', Harry raised an eyebrow. It was this, more than anything that convinced him that Malfoy showed remorse. That he felt misguided from his parents and wanted to start over.

Harry looked down. "You know, I saw you that night. Hidden under my cloak I heard every word you said." Malfoy nodded and narrowed his eyes and waited for Harry to continue. He had heard Harry's confession at his trial.

"You know, he would have died anyway." Malfoy looked inquiringly at Harry when he spoke. "Dumbledore, I mean. He had touched a cursed object and was counting his days. And he had weakened himself that day to gain a little more progress toward defeating Voldemort. He knew that you were supposed to kill him and he set it up with Snape to do it for you." Malfoy's eyes widened." That's why Snape was able to give your mother the Unbreakable Vow as well; he was going to do it anyway."

"I heard parts of it on the day of the final battle, when you confronted the snake. But how do you know that, Potter?" Malfoy was so quiet Hermione could hardly hear him.

Harry sighed. "I saw their memories. Snape gave me his memories before he died in the Shrieking Shack. About why he did what he did and how he set it up with Dumbledore to protect you. He was a brave man."

Harry looked straight into the grey eyes of the young man across from him. "Since these two great men put so much effort into saving your hide, perhaps we should indeed give you the opportunity to repay your debt. And since you offered me a hand the first time we met officially and I refused, I think it is time for me to offer my hand to you."

He struck his hand out across the divide between the two chairs. Malfoy looked at him like he had been struck by lightning. Then he narrowed his eyes again and knowing this was his only chance, he grabbed the hand that was offered to him.

Harry grinned lightly. "Hello, my name is Harry Potter and I will be leading the teams to capture the Death Eaters at large. We appreciate your offer of assistance."

Malfoy still looked grim but played the game. "Draco Malfoy, at your service."

Harry's face became sober again. "Don't get me wrong. I still don't trust you and I will watch you 24/7. One step in the wrong direction and you'll go straight to Azkaban."

Malfoy snorted. "I wouldn't expect anything else from you."

With a last nod, they let go of their hands.

"Listen, Malfoy, we have a meeting now to set up teams. Care to join us?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Sure, I have nothing in the afternoon."

Harry smiled. "Good, then. Follow me."

Harry proceeded out of the room, expecting his friends to follow. Hermione fell in step right behind him and Malfoy turned to join but there was one man missing.

Harry turned to look for his best mate who stood in the middle of the room thunderstruck.

"Ron?"

Ron's red face under his red hair could have set a room on fire.

"That's it?" he spluttered. "He feeds you some bullshit about being forced into Death Eater duty and you forgive him?"

Hermione made to walk forward toward Ron but Harry stopped her with his hand.

"What do you expect me to do, Ron?" he asked calmly.

"Send him to hell, for all I care. I lost a brother in this shit war, two others are disfigured for life and we barely escaped with our health intact, not to mention that we barely scraped by for a year living in constant fear for our lives. Hermione was tortured in his house and you embrace the epitome of Death Eater scum with open arms?"

Harry looked calmly at his best friend. "Mate, I know you lost a brother. Everybody lost somebody. I lost my parents," at this Ron flinched, "before the war even started. So, don't you think I don't know about loss? And talking about disfigurement," He raised his hand where 'I shall not tell lies' in scar tissue was still clearly visible. He didn't need to raise attention to his other scar. "I've had enough of this Death Eater shit and animosity between wizard folks. I want to find the scum and put them away and start my life in peace. And if Malfoy can help me do this faster, then I will accept his help. And you better get your butt over here and help me, too."

Ron still looked defiant. "What about Hermione?"

Harry was furious. "What about Hermione?"

"She was tortured. In his house."

"But not by him," Hermione piped up. "I was tortured by his crazy Aunt who luckily met her maker. Thanks to your mother." She glanced briefly at Malfoy whose slate grey eyes were impenetrable. "I don't have a problem with Malfoy helping us. You don't have to become chums with him, Ron."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Merlin forbid"

"Hey," she scolded. "Not helping"

Harry had calmed a bit. "See, Ron? Come on, we need to rebuild together. He does not have to become your next best friend but we need to work together. And Malfoy will be part of the future whether we want to or not."

Ron pushed past them out the door. "Not if he ends up in Azkaban." He was out in the hallway when he called back. "Come on, you guys. We are late for our next meeting."

Harry and Hermione grinned at each other while shaking their heads. Malfoy carefully tried not to look at them. It looked like a private moment.

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Harry had taken Malfoy by side-along apparition to the Square before his house at Grimmauld Place. When they stepped into the entrance, Draco hesitated for a second, then pulled him together and followed. He remembered that these were the good guys. They would not lynch him. And Granger would never let any harm come to him. She actually looked at him right now and motioned to him to be quiet and to follow them. They made their way quietly to the Drawing room where Ginny Weasley and other former students were already waiting. He recognized Dean Thomas, Finnegan, Longbottom, Loony Lovegood, and other students that he had seen as Dumbledore's Army members when they captured them in fifth year.

"What is he doing here?" Finnegan had seen them come in and stopped mid laugh. Everybody stopped talking and turned to the famous three when hearing Finnegan's tone of voice and saw Draco Malfoy right behind them. Quickly, everybody had jumped up from their seats and drawn their wands, pointing it directly at the blond. Ron snorted upon the open show of hostility.

Harry cleared his throat to capture everybody's attention. "Listen, guys. Malfoy here offered to share his knowledge of Death Eater hideouts with us. It'll save us lots of time if we don't have to research everything."

"What makes you think he won't just lure each and one of us in an ambush and do away with us?" came Dean's suspicious voice.

Harry eyed Dean contemplatively and said for everyone to hear: "I know it is hard to believe for most of you, but Malfoy got drawn into this war almost like we did. He knows that he stood on the wrong side and he wants to make up for it. I," at this he glared at each of the people present, "want to give him the chance. Anybody who has a problem with it, can clear out." Harry had almost growled the last words. The war had certainly taught him authority. He had learned over the last year that he had to make his own decision and stand up for the consequences. He had been guided gently by older and more mature men like Dumbledore and (not so gently by) Snape but the ultimate decisions had been his. And he was not going to take discussions over his decisions. His decisions had ultimately been right and led to Voldemort's demise and the saving of the wizarding world as a whole. He was not proud of how long it had taken him to defeat the Dark Wizard, and how many casualties it had cost, but he knew that his decisions were something he could live with. And who couldn't, would just have to step down. He was not going to fight over his decisions. With anybody.

Harry's growl and words did what he intended. With frowns and mistrust on their faces, everybody sat back down and the newcomers took seats as well, Malfoy the closest to the door and furthest away from the group.

Harry exhaled. "Alright, now that we are all settled, we can get down to business. You all heard Robards, he thinks, we are nothing but children too big for their boots and he doesn't want us to help catching the remaining Death Eaters who escaped after the Battle. Therefore, we'll have to do it on our own. Robards doesn't know that we have an excellent source," at this he motioned to Malfoy, "and that we'll therefore make lots of progress. We will match groups of two and, dependent on how many Death Eaters we expect to find, send out one or more teams. We will send messages through our Patronuses and meeting times with our coins. Everybody still got their Galleon?" Everybody nodded.

"Alright, to the pairing. Go and find yourself a partner you want to work with when catching dark wizards. It should be somebody you trust, somebody whose abilities you are familiar with, somebody who matches your abilities well."

Harry Potter gazed over the group of renegade warriors moving about to sit or stand next to their chosen partner. All these young wizards and witches had fought hard in the war and earned their spurs. Finnigan went to stand by Thomas, Ginny by Luna, Ron stood next to him and so on. In the end, everybody was paired up but two.

"Okay, first and foremost, who will go with Draco Malfoy?" Silence. Malfoy clenched his jaw. Of course not. Nobody would want to work with him. Fine. He would do desk work, help with the tracking, intelligence work and so on …

"I'll do it." His head shot up at the female voice. Of course. Hermione Granger.

"Are you suicidal, Mione? He'll do you in at the first chance," said Dean.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Pish posh. What do you think this is, an elaborate scheme? He walks into the Ministry to talk to us, to offer his help and knowledge just to get me on my own and then kill me? Right, he had more chances at Malfoy Manor in the spring. Please." She sneered.

Harry spoke up, tentatively. "Hm, Mione, I would be happier if a male had paired with Malfoy but if you think you can handle it …?" She nodded. "Okay, then, Dean and Seamus, …"

After all people had been paired, Harry gave last instructions: "We work in two or three teams together at first. We will send Patronuses as messengers to other teams if back-up is needed. All communication flows through me and Ron, I'll coordinate. Meeting dismissed, see you tomorrow, same time here."

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_A/N: It's again short and a connection between old (JK's) and new (mine, except for the characters which still belong to her, "*ç"%&, I would have taken Draco Malfoy any day) but it ties the old off nicely. The action will start again next chapter (rubs hands). Can't wait to see your responses. Cheers, people, M_


	12. To work, to work

_A/N: Well, Forbidden1991, maybe it was obvious that Hermione would team with Draco (I know, I asked for that in reviews, thank you) but she __is__ the one who always reaches out to him and they __are__ magically connected. We'll get to that now. Hold your hats, my friends, the ride begins_

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**12.** **To Work, to work:**

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The next day, one saw Malfoy and Hermione trudge through the underwood of a desolate stretch in a forest. They had jumped on the first case that came up; Malfoy to prove his good intentions, Hermione to prove that he was serious. They hadn't told anybody yet that they had had secret 'rendezvous' all throughout the sixth year and that she more than knew that he was serious. She still was not certain how they would react and the longer she kept quiet the more difficult it became. She was hoping however, that when they worked together, people would soften toward Draco Malfoy. All they had to do was having some success in their pursuits. She crossed her fingers.

"How much further is it to the shed?" she asked her quiet companion. He was walking to her right under the cool shade of the forest trees. He answered without glancing her way.

"It should be right behind that hill over there."

She and Harry had decided that it would be good to start checking all old hiding places first. The aurors would go to check the real leads, any real sightings all over the world, as far as they knew. Therefore nobody would get into each other's way. The shed up ahead was the entrance to a huge underground meeting room with sleeping quarters. She and Malfoy had volunteered to check if someone might be hiding there.

Hermione frowned. "We should make a plan. How do we go in? What do we do if we are outnumbered?"

"That's why I go in alone first, to see if somebody is there. You'll wait out here as a lookout and when I find some, I'll come back and we call for back-up. "

Hermione hrmpfd. "Malfoy, that plan limps on so many legs, it is not moving at all. First, whoever is in there will likely have heard that you help us, thus, you are a traitor to them which is dangerous for you. Second, if I stay out here, how can I make sure that you don't tip off whoever is in there and we actually capture them? And third, forget it."

Malfoy exhaled loudly. "Then what do you propose we do?"

"Is Parkinson still on your side?"

Malfoy looked exasperated. "If by 'my side' you mean cheering for Voldemort's team, then yes, she was at the last count."

Hermione blushed. "Sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant was, I could transfigure myself into looking somewhat like Parkinson and we could go in together. Nobody would be suspicious if she came with you. And if we are still outnumbered then we make our excuses and call for backup."

Malfoy stared at her. "Hm, even though it came from you; that could actually work."

"Oh, praise from the infallible Draco Malfoy" Hermione grinned.

He grimaced: "Sod off, Granger"

"So, how do we get there without raising alarm?"

He looked ahead. "I hope they haven't adjusted the wards to exclude me already. Then I would have no problem going in and taking you with me. Parkinson doesn't have the mark either."

Hermione stopped in her tracks. "The Mark? What mark?"

Malfoy shook his head and kept on walking. "The Dark Mark, Granger. What do you think?" When she didn't follow him, he stopped and turned around to her.

Hermione stared at him as if she had never seen him before. "You have the Dark Mark? Since when?"

Malfoy scowled. "Since before the sixth year. What's it to you?"

Hermione's stare turned to a glare at him. "You had the Dark Mark all the time and didn't tell me? I let you touch me, even kiss me and all this time you had this abominable thing on your arm? Why didn't I see it when you lay in the hospital wing?"

Malfoy had become quiet. "Because Snape glamoured it before he brought me to the hospital wing. It wouldn't have done any good either if Madam Pomfrey would have seen it. And I kept it glamoured after that for the time I was at school. "

But Hermione wasn't done. "I can't believe I even defended you in front of Harry. He was sure that you had it, showed it to Borgin to impress him and were up to no good in sixth year. And I stood up for you, tried to reason with him, tried to tell him how unlikely that was, with you as a minor. I mean, I knew that you had a task to fulfil and that it was going to be something dangerous but I'd never thought that they'd mark you as one of their own."

Malfoy waited for her to let of steam. When she stopped ranting he asked quietly: "You stood up for me?"

Hermione went off again. "Yes. I couldn't believe that you could have been branded. You were only sixteen. I thought Voldemort would have other people doing his dirty work, that he didn't need you for that."

Malfoy looked into the forest, everywhere but not at her. "You know, I was meant to fail. They didn't expect me to succeed. But it's not like I had much of a choice. Yes, I was proud at first that I could possibly restore my good family name after my father's failure. But I didn't stand in line to receive the Dark Mark because I wanted it so badly." He looked further out. "Or enjoyed the pain of it. As you said, I was only sixteen. I thought I had more time." He looked at her. "Time to find a way out."

Hermione looked at him thoughtfully for two full minutes while he held her gaze. What she was trying to see in his eyes, he didn't know but he'd be damned if he took the opportunity away from her. Finally, she lowered her head and broke the gaze. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have flown of the handle. Of course, you didn't have a choice."

He exhaled in relief and then shrugged nonchalantly. "It's okay. Your reaction is nothing to what people normally express when they find out. Their disgust, their repulsion goes a lot deeper." Even saying that, he didn't blink. Hermione shook her head. How detached he was. But it would do no good to bring it to the table at the moment; they had a job to do. And the longer they stayed here talking, the greater the likelihood that they were discovered.

"We better focus on our job now. I'll do the transfiguration, you tell me if it's good enough. You know better how Pansy looks like now." She set to work, turned her eyes blue, her hair straight and black and shorter, her face rounder, her bosom bigger, and her hips wider. Malfoy corrected her here and there. "No, her eyes are more of a cornflower blue. That's it. Do a ponytail that way you don't need her haircut. Her face is rounder, more, more, stop. Bust, hm, under your jumper nobody can see a thing. Pansy wouldn't be caught dead in this. Tight top, tight pants. Good. Shorter legs, more hips, that's it, that'll do."

Hermione felt uncomfortable with these shorter legs and more body to carry around in tight clothes to boot. She had always had a slim built. She filled out a bit when she turned seventeen and she had a nice slim waist, long legs and a firm handful of breast but she wouldn't call herself voluptuous by a long shot. And she covered herself in practical clothing. Other than Pansy who always wore clothes that supported her figure and showed her curves. Hermione fixed her clothes to fit her new body and turned to Malfoy to indicate her readiness.

She found him eyeing her and she attributed this to Pansy's body on her being so much more attractive to look at. The way he looked at her, before as well, she had noticed his stone grey eyes in the forest light. Malfoy eyes. She was aware that each old Wizard family had a trademark attribute. With the Malfoys, especially the males, it was the grey eyes and white-blond hair. Some had a particular hairstyle, like Harry's unruly shock of hair or only hair colour, like the Weasleys. With the greenish, speckled light through the foliage of the forest, Malfoys eyes twinkled, almost like Dumbledore's had been. It was a beautiful effect. Just then, Malfoy shook his head as if to clear it and the effect was gone. Hermione was disappointed. He asked: "Ready?"

Hermione nodded: "Yes, I'm ready."

He turned. "Okay, let's go."

They apparated the last kilometre to the shed. It would have been suspicious if they had walked up. Pureblood wizards don't trudge through the forest. They'd only done it so far to get a lay of the land.

They approached the forlorn shed in the middle of the forest with caution. Malfoy opened the door and whispered to Hermione: "Stay very close to me."

Hermione nodded her assent.

Draco whisked open the door of the shed and Hermione got a first glance. On the inside were a broken chair and a wobbly table and nothing else. But after they stepped in and had closed the door, the table and chair transfigured into a spiral staircase leading below, sparsely illuminated. Carefully, always watching out for potential inhabitants, they made their way downstairs.

The stairs led to a meeting room with lots of plush seating opportunities and one large armchair raised on a dais in the middle. Sleeping in that armchair was Alecto Carrow, looking even uglier with spittle running down her chin.

'Oh, what a treat' Hermione thought, supressing a shudder. 'One Carrow sleeping, but her brother can't be far.'

Just then Malfoy indicated with hand movements that she was to stay put, watching over the sister while he would go looking in the sleeping quarters for the brother. Again she nodded. She stood in front of the sleeping captive with her wand held ready at her side but not suspiciously raised while Malfoy slinked quietly away to the right.

While waiting she glanced around the room but there was no more in it than the initial view had allowed. This room was clearly made for secret meetings and not for anybody living in comfort. But if there were sleeping quarter, there would have to be washrooms and a kitchen.

She heard the noise just before she was grabbed roughly from behind. Stupid Silencing spells. The stench of lacking hygiene insulted her nose while a dirty hand grabbed her right breast roughly. She felt the poke of a wand in the middle of her back.

"Looky what we got here," she heard a quiet voice from just beside her ear. "Came to entertain an old war veteran, love?" The man behind her was likely the missing brother but she couldn't turn around to verify, he held her too tight. "Now drop your wand, nice and easy." She did as told and dropped it on the floor.

"I've got a nice room here, love, care to see it? I don't want to wake my sister. She's had a rough few days." With that he pushed her toward the right hand side of the room where Malfoy had disappeared just moments before.

'Okay, Hermione, don't panic. Malfoy is just in there.' Hermione tried to control her breathing, not only to prevent a panic attack but also the nausea from the stench. And from the imagination what this man wanted to do with her. Even if she was sure that he was not going to get there.

She felt Draco before she saw him stepping out in front of them. "Carrow," he said.

She could feel the man behind her recoil a bit, before he gathered his courage. She had to give it to him; if he wanted, Malfoy could make an impressive figure. Straight up at 6'2" with his light hair and penetrating gaze he would have made her shiver had he looked that intimidatingly at her.

Just then the man hiding behind her back piped up: "The young Malfoy, what an honour to have such a visitor." It was still a puzzle to Hermione how a person could grovel derisively. Wormtail had been another person able to do that. He continued growlingly:" But you'll have to wait your turn with the spoils. I got there first."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "You think I would want your sloppy seconds?" He shook his head disgustedly. "I don't think so. But I would appreciate if you didn't manhandle my **fiancée**; after all I've put her through to come here to check on **your** well-being."

"Did you, now?" the voice from behind her came hesitantly and the grip slackened somewhat. But he did not let go entirely and the hand over her breast stayed where it was.

Malfoy took care of that. "Yes, we did," he said while taking one of the fingers spread over Hermione's chest in disgust and pulling the hand off, then dropping it like a hot potato.

"And now that we know you are alright, we can go back and leave you to your devices," he continued with barely concealed repugnance.

"Not so fast, young Malfoy. Where do you think you are going back to?" Amycus Carrow grabbed Hermione tight again, this time around the waist and throat using her as a human shield. Malfoy narrowed his eyes in response, annoyed that his target was covered again but he replied nonetheless in a clipped tone.

"Where do you think we are going? Malfoy Manor, of course. We cannot congregate there, of course, the Ministry has us observed but I was sent to find as many Death Eaters as possible, so we can start over again. The mudblood scum won this time but we won't give up, won't we? Now, if you would take your filthy hands of my woman and hand her over, I would be ever so grateful." He had snarled the last words and Hermione shivered due to the maliciousness in them. In that moment, he truly was his father's son.

Carrow was not one of the brightest bulbs in the box but he knew to protect himself. He would not hand over his protection before being entirely in the clear.

"Well, as unfortunate as it is, I have to wake my sister, so she'll have a chance to see you two off. I don't want her disappointed that she missed your visit. Good manners and such, right?" With that he started pulling Hermione back to the meeting room.

That was not to their liking. Two war-proofed warriors against two barely of age witch and wizards was to even a fight to risk. Malfoy searched out eye contact with Hermione, so see how she was holding up. They had to make a break for it before the ugly man could wake his sister. Two on one and incarcerating a sleeping witch had better odds. He stared into almost Pansy's blue eyes knowing Hermione's brain to be behind them. Her eyes indicated that she was ready for whatever he would throw. She would try to dodge a surprise spell so it would pass her and hit its intended target. He moved forward, closer to her, so he could direct his wand around her body.

But Carrow, even though he had briefly looked down the hallway noticed his move. "Ah, ah, Malfoy, stay back. Can't be too sure nowadays just who drops in on you and all." He moved his wand out from Hermione's back next to her throat. "If you want your little play toy back in one piece, you play by my rules."

Malfoy let his wand slide into his sleeve and held his hands up in a no-harm-meant kind of way, to show that he was unarmed. Hermione's eyes widened seeing that he put his wand out of reach for the moment. At the same time, she was angered that she put herself in a situation where she had a wand pushed against her throat and no way to defend herself. Like the knife that Bellatrix had held against it. She still had a tiny scar from that. She would not let herself be victimized again.

She saw Malfoy eyes moving hectically to indicate something. She focused on it and understood. Carrow had almost dragged her back to the meeting room, just five more steps and they would be in view of the sleeping witch. But also within reach of her own wand. She nodded almost unperceptively to Malfoy, and let herself be pulled for another three steps while watching Malfoy slowly slip his wand out again. With the tiniest of nods, he indicated his preparedness and she threw herself against Carrow's wand hand, pushing his wand away from her throat and herself to the ground. She rolled once, until she felt her wand pressed against her side, grabbed it and aimed at Carrow the same time as Malfoy shouted "Stupefy". The bang resulting from the double spell would have been enough to wake a sleeping town and shook the room in its foundations. The not-anymore-sleeping witch in the armchair had her wand trained on Hermione in the floor before they could redirect their own.

"One wrong move and she dies," Alecto screeched.

'Damn', Hermione thought, 'if only we had stunned the witch when we came in before Carrow captured me.'

But then something curious happened: a shimmer in the air started over the fallen body of Amycus Carrow and drifted over to his sitting sister who stiffened and let her wand drop as if stupefied herself. Malfoy reacted quickly and put an "Incarcerus" over her and then her brother and bent down and collected their wands. He moved to Hermione/Pansy still lying on the floor and gave her a hand to help her up.

Together they looked around at their stunned captives. "What the fuck was that?" he voiced what they were both thinking.

Hermione's brain was working overtime as usual but could not find anything remotely close to an explanation. After a few seconds though, her practical side got the upper hand again.

"I have no idea, Draco, but let's get them out of here."

"Hm," he grunted his approval.

Hermione send her otter Patronus with a message to Harry who could send back-up to carry the siblings off.

While they waited, they watched their captives carefully but they didn't move even a single finger. Five minutes later aurors apparated into existence outside the shed, raising a caterwauling alarm that went directly to the bone.

Malfoy smirked and waved his wand to stop the terrible noise. "I'll go and bring them in. Can you watch them alone for the time being?"

Hermione grinned back. "Sure thing"

He came back two minutes later followed by four hitherto unknown aurors. When their leader saw the packages neatly tied, he raised an appreciative eyebrow. "All tied up and ready to go? Nice job. Maybe Robards is underestimating you somewhat. Jason Gallows, by the way, these are Rooks, Dobrinz and Curtz" The other three aurors nodded briefly in their direction and moved around the captivated sibling. They levitated them between them and moved toward the exit.

Gallows turned to follow them but turned back, when Hermione and Malfoy did not move.

"You coming?"

"Not quite yet, Mr Gallows," Hermione said. "We'd just like to inspect the premises to see, if we can find anything else on Death Eaters at large."

"Good idea," Gallows nodded. "I'll let them know at headquarters. Come to the Law Enforcement office, when you are done here. And call me Jason."

"Thanks, Jason".

After they had left, Hermione exhaled properly for the first time. Malfoy looked at her inquiringly. Hermione glared back.

"Say what you like, but I don't go around capturing Death Eaters habitually. It brings some excitement and tension with it. Especially, when they hold their wand to my throat."

Malfoy grinned. "Exciting it was."

They snooped around for another hour but couldn't find any signs that other Death Eaters had been there. That was not to say, that they were not going to control this hide-out on a regular basis from now on to see if anybody else showed up. After the conclusion of their search they exited the underground room, Hermione changed back and they apparated back to the Ministry.

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**.**

When they entered the office of the Department of Law Enforcement, applause shattered. Harry Potter, who stood talking to Robards in the main area, had seen them coming in and had started it. Jason Gallows, who stood next to him in deep discussion with Robards, followed suit and the members of his team, who were scattered through the room, followed their leader. Hermione blushed, embarrassed by the attention but Malfoy didn't move a face muscle.

They walked over to where Harry was standing and Mr Robards came forward and shook both their hands warmly in both of his. Malfoy wasn't sure whether to laugh out loud or sneer. Robards said: "Well, well, I am impressed. It was just to be a reconnaissance mission but you two managed to capture two Death Eaters right away. Maybe I did underestimate you a bit and we should work together. The great Harry Potter helping Law Enforcement rounding up Death Eaters will certainly give us a boost."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Enough, Mr Robards, you are making us blush."

Gallows spoke up: "We should give them an office and access to the library and such. With young Malfoy here, they will make more headway than we can. We'll help them with the manpower and they help us with the reconnaissance missions. What do you say?" He had spoken to Robards but the question went to Harry, Hermione and Draco.

Robards waved impatiently: "Alright, alright, full ministry privileges, I'll speak with Minister Shacklebolt." Hermione had no doubt that Kingsley would approve. He had after all, fought with them and knew their potential. "We'll clear out a large office and put in desks for everyone and you can start here every morning," Robards continued. "Will that be to your liking?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. "It's not about having a comfortable office, Mr Robards. It's about being able to combine strength and expertise to capture Death Eaters as quickly as possible to protect the remaining people on their hit list. Or who do you think the Lestrange brothers would go after first, if we don't try to capture them?"

The fact that they would go after Molly Weasley, mother of one war hero and wife of a ministry employee, to avenge Bellatrix Lestrange hung in the air. Mr Robards blanched and nodded. "Of course, of course, Mr Potter. We'll do it so you can approve. We'll call your group a special unit and you can confer with Gallows as a liaison. Alright, Gallows?"

Jason Gallows nodded his agreement. "Absolutely, Sir."

With a last turn to Hermione and Malfoy and a "Good work, Ms Granger, Mr Malfoy" Robards left the main area.

Shortly after, Jason Gallows excused himself and the "special unit" group was left alone in the main area. Harry turned to Hermione.

"Merlin, Hermione, you were just supposed to check out the shed, not get into another fight. I didn't take you for a girl who gets into brawls."

Hermoine grimaced. "Ha ha, Harry. We didn't want to fight but when Carrow grabbed me and put his wand to my neck, we didn't have much choice anymore."

Harry embraced her tightly. "Don't do that again. You scared the heck out of me. Out of us. Right, Ron?"

Ron mumbled some unintelligible and looked sour.

Hermione chuckled. "Sure, Harry, next time, I'll just hold still and let Malfoy do the fighting, right?"

Harry turned to his former adversary. "Thanks, Malfoy, for saving Hermione."

Malfoy pulled up an eyebrow: "Saving her? I didn't save her, she nicely did her own."

Hermione smiled at him out of Harry's arms. "Well, she is very important to me, to us all, so, anyway thanks," Harry finished.

Malfoy nodded. "My pleasure" and grinned at Hermione.

Ron pushed past him and he thought he heard something like "He better appreciate the pleasure because there is not going to be a next time."

His grin fell like sinking in water tied to a rock.

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**.**

After all the congratulations and shoulder patting, Malfoy withdrew to a quiet corner to breathe, stretch his long legs and maybe have a cup of tea. Hermione joined him within two minutes.

"Yes, a spot of tea would be just right," she remarked when she saw him make some.

Tea mug in hand, she sat down on a couch and groaned: "One couple down, 5000 to go."

Malfoy remained silent, stirring and looking into his tea. Hermione looked around the bleak room, lost in thought.

"Malfoy?" she asked quietly.

"Hm?" he indicated that he was listening.

"What did happen back there?"

He shook his head, still looking into his tea mug. "I don't know."

"What did you think about back there?"

He shrugged. "Just that I needed to stun them quickly. I stunned Amycus while you were groping for your wand and then, before I could aim for Alecto she was pointing her wand at you. And then she was stunned. Did you put a non-verbal stunner in?"

"No, I had my wand in hand in time to put out a stunner to Amycus but it was too late to switch to Alecto. Did you see the vibration, the glimmer in the air?"

"Yes, but I didn't know what it was. It started over Amycus and settled over Alecto and then she was out."

Hermione contemplated. "Yeah, that's what I saw too. As if the stunner from Amycus moved on its own to Alecto and knocked her out. I remember regretting that I hadn't stunned her when coming in but we couldn't have done that, we'd have blown any cover we were inventing for ourselves."

Malfoy stared at the wall opposite from where he was sitting. "I agree."

Hermione continued: "How can a spell move on its own? Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

Malfoy shook his head. "No, but that's not surprising. Anything like that would have looked like a non-verbal spell and nobody pays any attention to that."

"Hm," huffed Hermione.

"Hm," made Malfoy.

They were silent for a few minutes, sipping their tea, staring into space.

After a while, Malfoy spoke again: "Why do you work with me?"

Hermione was surprised. "What do you mean?"

Malfoy surveyed her from his seat: "I mean, why do you work with me, when nobody else would and everybody is opposed to it?"

Hermione smiled a little smile: "Because I happen to trust you and you deserve a second chance."

Malfoy snorted: "Nobody else sees it that way."

Hermione scoffed: "Well, I've always been different." She gave him an encouraging smile.

Malfoy didn't even blink. "What if I don't deserve your trust?"

Hermione considered him. "Why would you not?"

He snorted looking to the mug in his hands: "Remember who I am and where I come from."

Hermione looked at him thoughtfully for a minute or two. When he looked up again to see why she didn't answer, she mused: "Did you know that Harry was supposed to become a Slytherin?"

Malfoy's usually carefully crafted face mask fell for real. He had never looked this shocked in his life. "What?"

Hermione nodded: "Yes, the Sorting Hat considered putting him in Slytherin. But Harry begged it not to. Slytherin was the only house he wouldn't go to because he believed lots of bad wizards had come from there. That's what I mean. I trust you because you behave trustworthy. It's about the choices we make, Malfoy. You cannot become a copy of your father if you don't want to."

He was stunned for a second and then he felt his soul soaring.

In an afterthought and to distract from his contemplations and feelings, he added: "By the way, I'm taking the real Pansy for dinner tomorrow. "

Hermione chuckled. "Oh?"

"Yeah, my parents insist that I start dating, find a good woman and get married. They cannot wait for me to continue the Malfoy line, now that I finished school."

"Oh, well, good luck then. I'm going out with Ron."

"You are dating then?"

She giggled excitedly. Malfoy rolled his eyes. Hermione had never occurred to him to be the giggling type. "Yes, we are." She blushed a little.

He grinned. "Well then, good luck for you, too."

She grinned back. "Thank you."

.

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** .**

** .**

**Draco's POV: **

I should have known it was a waste of time. Well, not a waste exactly, because dining with Pansy was always fun. We'd done it many times before and she was always an entertaining conversation partner. We talked about our families, pureblood traditions and where they came from, historically, and which ones were out-dated and should be abandoned. She gossiped about our mutual friends and enemies and I learned a lot of details that I didn't need to know if I wasn't going to blackmail anybody.

But we cleared the air quickly, that there was no future for us as a couple. We had tried that in fourth year and kept it up as a 'friend with benefits' package in sixth year but not even Pansy was that crazy to say she wanted to spent the rest of her life with me. Luckily, with the war and all, our parents didn't force us. We would have resigned ourselves to it if we had to, but since we didn't need, there was no way we were going to. There were no sparks between us. We were comfortable with each other as good long-time friends and former shag-buddies are.

It was a pleasure to take her to dinner but I was not lusting after her. Whatever I might have said when I was younger, lust can only get you so far. After we had decided that we had no future together, she admitted to me that she was going to start seeing Blaise and I wished her the best. She helped me further with potential candidates for marriage and we narrowed it down to the Greengrass sisters (although Daphne was going out with Adrian Pucey), a distant cousin in the Rosier family by the name of Malora and a few others. Malora Malfoy, it shuddered me to think. Pansy thought it had a nice ring to it.

.

**.**

****

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**.**

**Hermione's POV:**

Ron took me out to dinner and a movie and we had lots of fun. The only thing missing all night was Harry, though. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for a threesome but most conversations in my life that I had with Ron had included Harry and he, his input was somehow missing from the conversation. But it was alright. We had an excellent dinner in a new bistro in Diagon Alley and held hands in the cinema. We went home to a little bit of snogging and cuddling and went all the way. I don't even remember how we got there but at one point during the snogging Ron started to undress me and it was new and exciting and I couldn't imagine a better partner for my first time and I let it happen. It was as disappointing as I heard from every source I ever encountered, printed or alive. I liked the closeness we had and I liked Ron's smell and body but it hurt like hell when the hymen ripped.

After that, there was no more fun to be had and I just bit my lip and waited for him to finish. Then we cuddled a little more and I thought, well, at least he is satisfied.

At one point, I told him I needed to sleep and he got up, kissed me and left. I took a shower and felt incredibly sore and went to bed. While falling asleep, I thought about how I now had lost my virginity and I wasn't sure how to feel about that. I wasn't sure at all how to feel: a bit disappointed that it didn't change me for the better; angry that I didn't get more for it after I saved it for so long; a bit elated that I was a 'full woman' now. I had enjoyed the closeness to Ron. And I couldn't blame him for not having more experience; after all, I wasn't experienced either. If I had been, maybe I could have made it more enjoyable. And all this thinking didn't get me anywhere.

So, I shut my mind off and slept for ten hours straight.


	13. Tracking

_I realize more and more that Draco becomes a little OOC. Keep in mind that he is not the snarky git from school anymore. He matured. ;-))) And he starts to trust Hermione who stands by him time and again._

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****

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**13. Tracking**

.

A few weeks later, Draco Malfoy went out with his friends for dinner in a posh restaurant in Diagon Alley. Just a dinner amongst friends. They might as well do it in style.

"Draco," Pansy squealed upon seeing him waiting at their table. "So good to see you. It's been what, a few weeks?"

Blaise followed behind her and clapped his friend's shoulder. "All these social engagements as soon as you are engaged, it's nerve wracking. You hardly have time to go out for dinner with your mates anymore." He pulled the chair out for Pansy who sank on it.

Draco couldn't agree more with his friend but then, it was their own fault. They had barely dated two times and got engaged. No wonder the parent generation was excited.

Pansy took up the key word 'dinner' and ran with it.

"While we are on the topic of dinner, how's your dating going?" she asked Draco slyly.

His grin upon seeing his friends fell. "You don't want to know."

She chuckled. "That bad? Do tell."

Malfoy sighed. "Well, I went out with you as you know and you moved on." He regarded her sternly. Blaise chuckled: "Lucky me."

Pansy nodded. "Alright, and else?"

Draco sighed again. "I took Sally-Anne Perks, Malora Rosier and Astoria Greengrass out so far. Daphne declined politely, I think her attachment to Adrian Pucey is deeper than I thought. I have Tracey Davis and Morag MacDougal lined up for the next few weeks and after that I can switch to other houses, maybe Carola Moon, Mandy Brocklehurst or Lisa Turpin. She at least likes Quidditch. And that's only our year and siblings. Gryffindor girls are out of the question, of course. If I don't take a fancy to any of the witches I take out, I should be done in two months. "

Blaise frowned . "Malora Rosier? I've never heard of her."

Pansy intervened: "You wouldn't. Your family is not in the inner circle. And she went to Beauxbaton. I believe her mother is French and insisted that she went to the French school." She turned back to Draco. "Any girl to your liking so far?"

Malfoy shook his head in decline. "No. I can't imagine sharing my life with any of them. Greengrass was tolerable, she doesn't need to align herself to the Malfoy name, but the others were insipid geese. Unbearable."

Pansy pursed her lips. "Hm, do you, how can I say, 'test-drive' them in all areas of a relationship?"

He eyed her sharply: "Do I look like a gentleman who kisses and tells?"

Blaise laughed: "Yes, given the right circumstances, if you had to gain something from it, you would."

Draco chuckled: "Fair enough. But this time I won't."

His friend grimaced: "Oh, now that we were getting to the good parts."

Pansy smacked him in the chest. "You are off the market. What do you care how other girls are in bed?"

Blaise rubbed his chest. "Ow, Pansy. It's just always good to know. Maybe I need to recommend something at one point."

Pansy rolled her eyes. "You are disgusting."

Blaise grinned and leaned over to talk in her ear. "That's why you love me, for my disgusting fantasies." She giggled.

Draco made a grimace. "Alright, alright, stop this show at once."

Pansy turned her attention back to him. "So frustrated, Draco? Or is it your work with Granger that has you so blue?"

Draco shook his head. "No, working with Granger is fine."

Pansy narrowed her eyes. "I hear she's dating Weasley."

Draco grimaced again. "I thank you for not going into detail. Being around her all day is as much as I can stomach. Mental images of her and the weasel would be too much."

Blaise patted Draco on the shoulder again. "It's only for a year, my friend. In the grand scheme of things, a year is nothing. And after that, you are free to go about your old ways. Enjoy your money, play the lord of the estate and so on. Right?"

"Right," Draco agreed. He didn't quite agree with his friends but he was not going to tell them that over dinner in public. Plus, he didn't know, why exactly he did not agree and what he wanted to do. But the recent developments in his and Granger's magic required some research. He didn't know where it would lead. And he had gotten a taste of his actual work. He couldn't imagine himself simply lording over the estates anymore, or just managing the Malfoy businesses. He wanted to create something. He wanted to build a new Malfoy legacy. Draco Malfoy wanted to be as different as possible from his father.

.

The next day in a simpler establishment on the other side of Diagon Alley, Hermione was having coffee with Ginny and Luna.

"I see that you managed to detach yourself from Harry," Hermione greeted her friend when they came in.

Ginny pulled a face: "With his hunting Death Eaters and me going back to school after the summer, we have to use the time we have as efficiently as possible."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Use your time efficiently, that's what it's called nowadays?"

Ginny waved her hands impatiently. "Harry and I are a done deal. There is nothing new about us. I'd rather have you tell me how your dating of my brother is going."

Hermione turned to her coffee mug and became very interested in stirring it very thoroughly. "Okay, I guess."

Ginny's eyebrows went up: "Only okay? You guess?"

Hermione groaned with a frown. "What can I say? It's like uncharted waters even if we are so familiar with each other. We went out a few times, he stayed overnight at my apartment. Ron and I have been best friends for a long time. It's strange to be lovers all of a sudden. Even if it's not sudden. It is difficult not to fall back into old habits of friendship."

Ginny frowned. She didn't want to hear any details of her brother's intimate relationship with her friend. Even though girls habitually talked about their relationships, she didn't need to hear anything about her brother's performances. She said as much with a shudder. "I don't think I need to hear any details."

Hermione looked at her and looked somehow through her.

Ginny eyed her suspiciously: "What, Hermione?"

She still didn't focus. "Have you ever felt crowded in your own home?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "What kind of question is that? You know the kind of house I live in." Ginny's stare tried to penetrate her friend's cranium but didn't get through.

Hermione looked away, reminiscing, reflecting something in her head but wasn't willing to discuss it openly. After a minute or two, she shook her head. "It's nothing."

Luna participated for the first time. With her oblivious look she said: "Ronald can be a bit narrow-minded. I noticed that he is very focused on the essential things in life, like food."

Hermione and Ginny looked at her thoughtfully. Luna grinned: "Talking about food, I'll have banana-nut muffin and a café latte. What would you like?"

.

****

.

The next day, while others were tracking other Death Eater hideouts, Draco and Hermione found themselves in their common office at the Ministry of Magic. There had been a few more scenes like the one with the Carrows where a spell they did together exhibited an exorbitant amount of magical force or their magic continued on its own. Its regularity stunned them but they were nowhere closer to defining, not to mention explaining the phenomenon. They still hadn't confided their adjunction in anybody yet and these incidents when witnessed were explained away with their magical prowess and quickness of reaction and non-verbal spells. But they knew better. They had an idea that it had to do with their adjunction of magic but it didn't help that there were close to no historical records about it. And even fewer descriptions of the ramifications.

They were approaching their "problem" theoretically. The two former enemies figured, once they had found an explanation, they would be able to tell Hermione's friends and his family in a reasonable way. Without, it looked fishily like a forbidden affair gone wrong. And they didn't want anybody to think they'd had that.

And they had to find a better way to track other Death Eaters. They were running out of options and secret hiding places and there was still a huge number of Death Eaters at large.

Thus, they were to be found bent over ancient tomes, doing the one thing that Hermione was particularly good at and Draco turned out to be quite apt at, which was researching. They had been sitting for hours where nothing was heard but the rustling of ancient parchment and an occasional cough from the dust, when a new sound mixed in: the growling of a stomach. Malfoy smirked at his companion in research: "Hungry, Granger?"

Hermione let her head sink to the page she was studying and groaned: "Aren't you? We've been at it for hours. I'm starving, my neck is cramped, I can't feel my legs anymore and I've forgotten whether I have a lower back or not."

Malfoy sneered: "Well then, I believe we have to disrupt our work due to your weak female constitution."

Hermione gave him a glare with narrowed eyes. "I'm sure it would only be a matter of minutes until your stomach growled as well."

Draco shook his head. "No, as a Malfoy, I have my bodily functions under control, thank you. We do not indulge in such unbecoming noises."

Hermione snorted. "I'm sure. Well, I'm going for lunch, care to join me?"

"Hm, I wouldn't mind a cup of tea and a biscuit."

"Maybe we can exchange what we found so far."

"That will be a short exchange because we didn't find anything."

"No, Malfoy, there will be a long hypothetical exchange about the things we didn't find."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Granger, honestly, I am all for research but you are putting my tolerance to a test."

She smiled. "We'll see."

.

****

A little while later they sat down in the cafeteria of the Ministry, Hermione with a plate piled with a huge amount of food in front of her, Draco with a cup of tea. He stared at the pile in front of Hermione that must have equalled roundabout 2000 calories. He shook his head. "Granger, if you keep eating like that you'll turn fat like the Weasel mother."

Hermione snorted. "Do I look fat to you?"

Malfoy raised a delicate eyebrow. "Not at the moment, but it can only be a matter of time, the way you're shovelling food down your gully. Must be a muggleborn thing that it takes you so long to gain weight. The pureblooded girls I go out with order something light and then end up pushing the food around on their plate. I believe, you would order a steak with fried onions and mashed potatoes as side dishes if you went out for dinner."

Hermione grinned and ignored his comment about not gaining weight:" Fried onions and fried potatoes. Absolutely."

He shook his head again. He couldn't help but be somewhat impressed. Granger was anything but fat. "So, where do you put all that food?"

She shrugged and answered quickly. "I work it off. I run and walk a lot and work my brain hard. I eat more for lunch than for dinner and I don't eat many sweets. Bad for the teeth, you know. You wouldn't believe how much more of a lunch you can have if you skip dessert. If I don't have a full plate for lunch, I'll be hungry again in two hours flat. But if I were going out for dinner I would have less lunch, of course, save some room. And sometimes, when I'm involved in something, I forget to eat because it is more important to keep going." She put a fork full of mixed vegetables and meat in her mouth and chewed slowly.

Malfoy looked contemplatively. He was genuinely curious. "What do other women do, then? They take good care of their bodies, don't they run and walk and whatever?"

Hermione laughed. "Ah, but there's a difference. It requires a lot more energy to run and walk while working than working out specifically. And working your brain like I do, requires more energy than sitting in a bathtub and having your nails or hair done."

"Hm" He accepted her answer and watched her cleaning her plate while he sipped his tea.

"What about you?" she asked when she was almost done. "When do you eat? You are a young man, I'm sure you don't need to watch a diet, if Ron and Harry are any standard to go by."

He sneered. "I thank you for not comparing me to these savages, especially the Weasel if his eating manners are anything to go by." But then he shrugged. "I have a rich breakfast before I leave home in the morning and we have a full five to six course dinner each night. I get my fill."

She stared with her mouth lightly open: "Five to six courses every night? Alright, I would have a cup of tea then for lunch as well. Merlin's beard."

He grinned a little. It felt good to be affirmed by Granger, a new experience. But then, he shook himself mentally. Bad thought, he scolded himself. This must be what the Weasel felt like. Better get back in safe waters.

"Granger, your mouth is still open."

"Oh, sorry." She said contemplatively. "I was already back thinking about our research. I think we should get back quickly."

Malfoy exhaled in relief. "I quite agree. I'm ready as soon as you're done with your calorie intake." He really didn't want to think about anything regarding Granger and Ron Weasley and what they were doing together. He shuddered. Now he couldn't get the picture of Granger and Weasley together out of his head. And it made him uncomfortable.

.

****

Later the afternoon, they had returned to their work and resumed their poring over the books. Right before tea time, Hermione worked her way through a tome called "The beauty of the Dark Arts" and came upon a chapter that dealt with specific markers of magic and how to recognize them. Dependent on the kind of magic you used, there would either be a specific energy pattern change or a temperature change or both combined. The author of the book had given a few examples and made a reference to a colleague who had started to catalogue these specific markers but that was all he said about it. Still, it was a start and Hermione grabbed Draco's arm excitedly when she found it.

"Malfoy, look here, there's …," was as far as she got because Malfoy pulled his arm away with a jerk and a hiss.

Hermione stared at him open-mouthed. "What did I do?"

"Careful where you put your hand, Granger." He massaged his left forearm.

Her eyes bulged; it looked like Malfoy had gotten something like an electric shock from her touch.

"But that is, hm…." She went back to her book.

"What was that you tried to electrocute me for?" Malfoy grumbled.

"Look, it says here that magic creates different energy patterns or temperature changes, depending on the kind of magic. Magic that annihilates creates more heat changes whereas benevolent magic that creates has more changes in pattern. From a certain threshold on it affects both combined." She looked up expectantly.

Malfoy frowned. "What does that have to do with my Mark?"

"It didn't until two minutes ago. I just thought that if you could specify your point spell to a specific magic you could maybe find Death Eaters. But when I touched you and it had a reaction, I thought …"

"… we could specify it on the Mark," Malfoy continued her sentence with sudden recognition.

Hermione frowned as well, deep in thoughts. "Yes, that's what I thought."

"Yes." For once, Draco Malfoy's eyes gleamed in excitement. But it quickly waned to make room for more frowning. "But how do we specify the magic of the Dark Mark?"

Hermione still looked thoughtful. "Yes, that's the problem."

"Hm" Malfoy pulled up his sleeve to expose his mark. He studied it closely and Hermione couldn't help but stare at it as well.

It was pretty in a morbid kind of way; Malfoy's white skin with a few blond hairs marred with the black lines. The lines were a bit raised like scar tissue which was probably exactly what it was. It didn't look alive anymore, now that Voldemort was dead and gone. If anything it looked thoroughly dead; like it had been etched in the skin or cauterized and killed every cell it was burned on. It was called branding for a reason. Branded like cattle. What a joke.

She put out a finger tentatively to touch it again. Malfoy eyed her warily and made a huffing sound in anticipation but let it happen. They had to experiment somewhat. This time when her finger touched his skin, it only tingled. There was no pain like the shock from before, only buzzing like an alarm clock in the morning, only without the sound. After a few seconds, it became warm where her finger lay. The warmth spread over the entire mark and increased in intensity. But it never became the burning white hot that destroys your skin and makes you scream in pain as he had experienced when he had received the mark.

Granger studied his face closely. "Let me know when the pain becomes unbearable."

He looked concentrated on his mark and forgot his usual antagonism toward her. "It doesn't hurt, really. It's just incredibly hot, like sitting too close to a fireplace." She took her finger away and Malfoy felt cold, like you feel when you move away from said fireplace. He rubbed his arm to disperse the feeling.

She still looked at his face. "You know, it felt like it drew the magic from me. My finger felt really cold on your skin, like I put it on ice."

Malfoy looked back. "My skin felt really hot where you touched it."

"Hm" Hermione frowned at him.

"Hm" Malfoy frowned back, both not knowing how to continue.

As one they looked down on his forearm again, which lay quietly between them.

"If you could figure out, how exactly it feels …"Hermione thought slowly aloud.

Malfoy stared at her. "… then you could sensitize yourself to it and follow it," he finished her sentence again.

Hermione looked contemplatively: "Hm, how do you sensitize yourself to magic?"

Malfoy shrugged. That was his area; ingrained magical knowledge, not researched from books. "You have to get exposed to it. After years and years of practice you get a feel for it."

"We don't have years and years. Is there any way to speed the process up?" Hermione queried impatiently.

Malfoy looked thoughtful. "Maybe if you get an overload of it?"

Hermione looked up at him. "Or if you figured out the exact heat and energy pattern?"

"Yeah, or that." Malfoy agreed.

Hermione looked to the side but Draco could still see how her brainwaves worked hard.

"How do you get a feel for different magic?"

Malfoy looked at her bushy hair and wondered why she had never tried to tame it. "You know, everybody's magic is a little different, specific to the caster." She nodded. "You've seen that we have different colours. But that's not all. Each magic is specific like a … a… a fingerprint. Family members can be alike but nobody is ever the same."

Hermione looked back at him and nodded again. "Yes, your magic on mine in the Manor felt familiar."

He nodded likewise. He didn't know what else to say. He was still embarrassed that Granger had to suffer from his crazy aunt and that he had helped her so insufficiently. She pushed on. "What about Squibs?"

"To be honest, those are just really, really unlucky. And very bitter. To grow up in a magic environment and then find out that you can't do it … Look at Filch." He shook his head regretfully. "But they are very, very rare."

Hermione looked doubtful. "They can't be that rare, I know already two at least."

He looked up. "Who else is a Squib?"

"Arabella Figg."

Recognition dawned on his face. "Oh"

"What?"

"That may have saved her life. She had two sisters, very powerful. One married a Prewett, one a Fletcher."

"Fletcher? As in Mundungus Fletcher?"

Malfoy smirked. "Yeah, they are not all crooks, the Fletchers. I believe Mundungus is a cousin of sorts."

"You said, she **had** two sisters?"

"Yeah, they are all dead. Died the first time Voldemort was powerful. Fabian Prewett and his wife were murdered in the first wave. Blood traitors, all of them. "

"How do you know all that? You can't have been more than a baby at the time."

"Well, I heard my parents talking about it. I believe my father had something … to do with it."

Hermione felt hot and cold. "You mean your father was involved in killing the Prewetts?"

Malfoy frowned. "Possibly. Or the planning of it."

"Do you know that Ron's mother is a born Prewett?"

Malfoy nodded.

"Is that why you hate Ron so much? Because he reminds you of what your father was involved in?"

Malfoy shook his head and sighed. "I don't hate him. That would be giving him too much credit. He just rubs me the wrong way. We are both purebloods and we couldn't be any different, wouldn't you agree?"

Hermione nodded.

Malfoy continued quietly. "And he always stood for what I couldn't have. A whole house full of children and laughter, older brothers to look up to, to guide you, to protect you. A sister to take care off. I was always alone with my parents."

Hermione pushed her hand a little toward him over the table but was careful not to touch him again. Not just yet. "I believe, if you asked him, he'd tell you that having older brothers who tease you first and foremost, isn't all it's cracked up to be."

He looked at her hand and grinned. "And Ginny would castrate you rather than let you take care of her," she continued. He had to chuckle at that. "Merlin, Granger, can't you leave me and my Weltschmerz alone?"

She grinned back. "I'd rather you got your brain going on how we can discern specific magic energy patterns."

They turned back to the books. After a while, Hermione looked up again to see Malfoy bent over his pages and couldn't keep to herself.

"Malfoy?"

"Hm?" he indicated his listening.

"Are you aware that we just had civil conversation without snarling and exchanging insults, solely focused on the topic at hand?"

He looked at her startled. Then he furrowed his forehead.

"Don't get used to it, Granger. One out of a million."

She lowered her head back to her book to hide her grin. "Sure, alright."

.

With renewed vigour, they dove back into the books. At least, now, they had something more specific to look for than scanning through old books for something, anything that could help with tracking.

Supper time arrived and Harry came to release them for the day. He slumped into a chair across from Draco, put his forehead on the table and groaned. "We've searched an entire forest all day but nothing. I'm pooped. Did you have dinner yet?"

Malfoy and Hermione exchanged glances: they didn't, but neither of them felt like leaving their work for now. They were too close to actually discover something helpful.

Hermione cleared her throat: "No, Harry, but we are not finished. We are looking for something very promising and don't want to stop now."

Harry looked up, more awake then before: "Something promising? Like what?"

"Too early to say, Potter, but we need to keep looking," Malfoy snarled.

Harry groaned again: "Well, go on, then. As long as I don't have to stay with you."

The companions in research exchanged another glance. No, they didn't need company. "No, Harry, by all means go home, get some rest. We can finish on our own."

Harry got up and walked toward the door. With a last glance back he admonished his best friend and her partner: "But don't stay all night. The books will still be here in the morning."

Hermione snorted. "Good night, Harry"

With a "Night, Mione. Malfoy," Potter closed the door behind him. Silence ensued. Hermione turned back to the book in front of her.

Malfoy stretched his legs. "As hard as it is to admit, Potter is not wrong, you know. The books will indeed be here in the morning."

She shook her head. "You are more than welcome to go home to your six course dinner. Indeed, it would be a shame to waste it. But I'm staying. I can order something to eat."

Malfoy looked at her, then shook his head. "How about we go home and order something and take the books with us?"

Hermione looked up at him, eyebrows raised. "What about your dinner?"

He smirked. "Don't you worry about it; somebody else will take care of it."

She jumped up and almost overturned her chair. "Alright then, let's go."

Malfoy chuckled. Her enthusiasm for research was one of a kind and only bested by her love for books in general.

Two hours later, one could see them sitting amongst half empty boxes of Chinese take-out and cups of tea in Hermione's apartment, still poring over the books they had taken with them. Malfoy had had trepidations about going to her place but had conceded, when she had assured him that Ron was over at Harry's place and was not going to come tonight. And there was no way that she would go to Malfoy Manor just yet.

He was now settled between Hermione's couch cushions; Crookshanks nestled against his thigh and looked very much at home there. Upon entering her apartment, Malfoy and Crookshanks had eyed each other with wariness. Malfoy clearly was no cat person and wasn't sure whether he should like or loathe the orange fur ball. But after Malfoy had shared some chicken from his chǎo-miàn with Hermione's cat, they had become best of friends.

"Well, Malfoy, it seems you are a cat person after all."

He snorted. "In your dreams, Granger. You can count yourself lucky that we have house-elves who can clean my trousers in a jiffy or I would have sent you my cleaning bill to get all the cat hair removed."

He extracted a case for glasses from the inside of his cloak and put the glasses on before opening another thick volume, "Essentials of Magic" by Alfred Cornubius.

Hermione looked fascinated. "Why have I never seen you with glasses before?"

Malfoy answered without looking up from the book: "Because I have a rare case of Nox myopia. I only need glasses for reading at night, when the sun is down."

"Oh? I guess I'm not the only one who knows about that, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, all the other witches that join you at night would have seen that, too, wouldn't they?"

"Granger," he looked up, smirking over the top of his glasses. Even though his glasses were round, he looked so much like Dumbledore when he did, that Hermione almost had to stifle a giggle. But it got stuck in her throat with what he said next. "Witches joining me at night don't really have a chance to see me reading. In fact, apart from my parents and close friends, you are the only one who has seen me with glasses."

"Hm, I see," she grumbled a little disconcerted. She had run right into that one, and it was so obvious. But she didn't really want to think about what he did with other witches at night. Although, it actually shouldn't concern her at all. What else shouldn't concern her, was the fact that his grey eyes looked so lively through his glasses that she had to restrain herself not to walk over like she was hypnotized and stare into them. She got up to make some more tea and hide in the kitchen for a while until her embarrassment subsided. Malfoy looked after her and couldn't suppress a grin spreading over his even features.

.

After she came back with the tea, it was quiet in the apartment while they looked through the books. It was going on ten o'clock and the drowsiness after dinner had settled in. The fact that Crookshanks lay on his back with his belly up, ready to be scratched, to which Malfoy obliged every ten minutes or so, and consequently purred loudly on the sofa every time his belly was touched, did not help matters and Hermione, sitting in her favourite armchair, felt her eyes become heavier while gliding over the page in front of her. Something about making an image of an energy pattern lodged itself in her mind before it succumbed to slumber.

The next time Malfoy looked up, wanting to tell her something that could potentially have something to do with their adjunction, he found her asleep, her head tipped sideways, her unruly locks falling in her face. Her face relaxed, her long dark lashes on her cheeks, her pink lips shiny, her worry lines smoothed out, she made a very peaceful picture. Smiling, he turned to the cat.

"Well, Crooks, should we let your mistress have a little slumber like that?" Crookshanks blinked and turned on his other side to have Malfoy scratch that side as well. He obliged and then let his head sink on the back rest of the sofa, one hand still on the warm fur belly. Staring at the ceiling he let his thoughts run freely, about his life, his past, his present, about how he ended up on Granger's couch and why he felt so comfortable here, with her abominable cat leaving orange hair on his black wool trousers. The last thought that went through his head was an irrational one about how, if he and Granger lived together, they would have half a house full of bookshelves, before he was overcome with sleep.

Hermione woke when Crookshanks jumped on her lap and pushed the book down. It fell to the floor with a thud.

"Oh, Crookshanks, did I forget your dinner? I'm so sorry."

The orange cat blinked up at his mistress and impatiently waved its tail. Hermione yawned. It slowly came back to her what she had been doing before she fell asleep and the reason why she was sleeping in her armchair. Was Malfoy still there or had he left?

Hermione saw him sitting on her sofa, head sunk back, peacefully asleep, his glasses still on his nose and his lips lightly open. His blond hair fanned out over the back of the couch and he looked beautifully relaxed when a sneer didn't mar his features. She got up with a smile and took the book away from his lap and put it on the coffee table. Carefully, she took the glasses off, put them on top of the book and then pushed his shoulders to the side and down, so he would lie on the couch. Under Crookshanks scrutiny, she took a blanket from the end of the sofa and spread it over him. That done, she collected the tea cups and brought them to the kitchen, with Crookshanks hot on her heels.

Snuggling under her bed covers a little later, she wondered if Malfoy would still be there in the morning.

.

****

Draco Malfoy woke the next morning to the smell of coffee and bacon and eggs and a warm weight that gave off frequent vibrations in front of his chest. He wondered in his half-asleep state, how it came that he could smell coffee in his bedroom (the kitchen or dining room was miles away from his part of the manor) and that the weight gave strange noises. He opened his eyes slowly, only to look directly at a coffee mug and a hand waving the hot coffee smell directly at his face, his vision slightly clouded by orange fur.

"Morning, sleepy head. Rise and shine," a chipper female voice reached his ear.

Now completely disoriented, he quickly set up, dislodging the orange weight, which meowed disappointedly, and noticing regretfully how the cosy warm blanket fell away. Shivering, he drew the blanket around himself again, patted Crookshanks apologising on the head and looked up in Granger's brown eyes and smiling face.

"Not a morning person, are you?" she kept smiling.

He rubbed his face and opened his eyes forcefully. "I am, actually. What time is it?"

"Half seven. I've been up for over an hour, showering and preparing breakfast but you slept like the dead." She pushed the coffee mug in his hands where he cradled it and inhaled the smell.

It registered what Granger had said. "Half seven? As in 7:30 am? Wow." He looked over towards the window, where the autumn sun was just filtering in.

"Hm?" Hermione raised one eyebrow. She belonged to the group of people who could raise either one or the other eyebrow or both. Not everybody was able to do that. He looked fascinated at her forehead and remembered that she needed an explanation.

"I don't think, I've slept this long since I was ten years old and on vacation. Not even when I work into the night, I sleep longer than half six."

"Oh. And did you sleep well?"

He shook his head as if to clear it. "I guess. I don't remember waking up at all."

She laughed. "Why, do you normally wake up in the middle of the night?"

His flustered look stopped her laughing. A lengthy pause ensued.

She sat down next to him on the sofa. "Me too. What do you dream about?"

"Multiple things," he mumbled hesitantly.

She sighed. "My worst nightmare is the snake in Godric's Hollow. It was so horrible and so close and I broke Harry's wand. We had to jump out of the window and apparate in mid-air to escape."

His look pierced her as if to say, don't lie. "Not Bellatrix in Malfoy Manor?"

She shook her head. "No, not Bellatrix, although she is a close second. But I had help there, remember?" She smiled up at him.

He looked away. "Not enough."

She nudged him with her shoulder. "Every little help was good. What's yours?"

Just then Crookshanks jumped next to them on the sofa, having finished his breakfast and starting his morning wash. Malfoy gave him another stroke over the head.

"Well, Bellatrix is certainly a part of my nightmares. I'm still dreaming about what she did to you and that I couldn't do any more to help. And the whole night of the final battle is one nightmare for me," he said quietly. "You three had just broken into Gringott's and escaped on a dragon. All of you had to come through Hogsmeade where Death Eaters lay in the wake to await you. The Carrow's waiting for you in the Ravenclaw common room. Then Potter appeared in the Great Hall without you. There was so much that could have gone wrong. In the Room of Requirement, I don't know if you are aware how close you and Potter came to being avadad by Crabbe. And knowing you guys, I know that neither of you would have stopped to grieve before your task was not completed. The worst, though, was when Voldemort came out of the forest with Potter supposedly dead. The despair that you all exuded was tangible. It permeated all, I could taste it on my tongue and it tasted very bitter. When I get to that point in my nightmare, I wake up and think, Merlin, what could I have done to prevent it? That night I decided that no matter what, I could not stand by Voldemort any longer and it scared the shit out of me what it would mean."

Crookshanks rubbed his head on Malfoy's hand lying on the sofa next to his leg. He shoved his nose, then his entire head under the palm to make him stroke some more. Against his will, Malfoy had to smile because of the tenacious cat and indulged him in scratching under his chin and on the cheeks. Crookshanks purred.

Hermione had listened quietly but when she watched the interaction between her cat and the stubborn young man, she spoke up: "Do you know that he's not fond of Ron? Ever since Ron accused him of killing his rat which was actually an animagus, he carries a grudge. He tolerated Ron here but he would never sit with him, not to mention let Ron stroke him."

Malfoy smirked. "Is that true, Crookshanks? You are one smart cat, aren't you? I'm sure you knew that the rat was actually human, right?" Crookshanks blinked and purred as a confirmation.

Hermione laughed and nudged Malfoy again. "Come on, let's have breakfast. We need to go into the Ministry to work out what we discovered yesterday. I actually thought of something that could help with identifying energy patterns."

Malfoy, still looking at the cat, nodded and got up to follow her into the kitchen.

.

****

**Draco's POV:**

After the hearty breakfast (bacon and eggs) and more coffee I excused myself from Granger and went home to shower and change.

Standing under the pounding of the water on my back I revelled in the relaxing effect that always had on me. Surprisingly, I noticed that I was well rested. That had been the only night without nightmares since, well, I couldn't remember since when. The human animal is astonishingly resistant. It adjusts to lack of sleep even over a long time with ease, as was my case. But you notice the difference when you are well rested for once. And I did notice. What puzzled me, of course, is why I slept so well, not in my king sized four-poster but on a crummy couch shared with her monster cat in Granger's apartment. And I didn't think the cat was the solution.

Unwanted, the memories of Granger sleeping in her armchair came to mind. How peaceful she had looked when she was usually so tense and high-strung. Half her face had been covered by her wild hair that reached down to the swell of her breasts. I had seen a bit of her throat and the skin had looked very soft. I remembered her smell, which would be exceptionally strong on her throat and how I wanted to nuzzle the skin. I gripped my member tightly as it was making an unwanted appearance and scolded myself. This was Granger, for heaven's sake; Gryffindor, Know-it-all, Muggleborn, bushy haired, food shovelling, un-groomed and not at all ladylike like a pureblooded girl. She was a slim girl and didn't seem to care at all about her looks. For some reason, she always looked very comfortable in her skin, though.

While stroking my snake, I remembered the last thing I had read last night. The one thing I had wanted to tell Granger, when I saw her already asleep. Alfred Cornubius, who was well known in the wizarding world for publishing the essentials of magic and for having himself blown up in one of his "experiments" (disregarding his own essentials, basically) had talked about the specificity of magic and what would happen if you combined the magic of two people, like in an adjunction (purely theoretical, of course). He had theorized that if you combined two magical energies into one, they would align, preserve their own essentials and create a combined magic with a new fingerprint, so to say. That process would extrapolate the power of the adjuncted beings because they had the ability to use their own, as well as the adjuncted person's and the combined magic, thus, quadrupling the power available. If that was what had happened to Granger and me, it was no wonder that we keeled over other wizards when stunning them. We had together not two, but four times the power we usually had.

Cornubius had theorized further that when adjuncted magic became as strong as it was, minimal intention to use it would be sufficient. In a non-verbal spell the wizard or witch needs to focus strongly to direct his or her magic. Due to the extra power in an adjunction a lot less focus was necessary. That would explain why the spell wandered on its own accord, so to say. When we simply wished we had done something it forced the magic onward as if in a non-verbal spell.

I had to go and tell Granger. She would be thrilled to know more about what was happening to us. My snake banished by my thoughts, I finished my shower quickly, got dressed and went into the Ministry without seeing anybody in my house.

.

****

**Hermione's POV:**

I had been already in the shared office, putting some of the books away, when Malfoy came in. He looked different for some reason. As much as his face remained stoic as usual, his eyes had a glitter to them that betrayed excitement about something.

After having spent so much time working closely with him, I started to recognize and tell apart his frowns. There were differences between them. When we were at Hogwarts together, I didn't pay much attention to him and thus, his face showed only one mask of non-concern, moving into sneers at times and occasionally smirks. At this time, after months of looking at his face almost every day I could differentiate a condescending straight face, bordering on a sneer, when he pulled up his nose wings; a shocked face when he opened his eyes wider than usual; a disappointed one when his face truly fell and an excited one when his eyes truly shone. That was the one he presented today. I smiled a little when I realized how much more familiar I had become with him.

"What's to smile, Granger? Happy to see me?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, Malfoy, I just realized that your sneers are different and I can't wait to expand my catalogue of them. You know, I am all about researching and cataloguing."

He was taken aback: "You noticed my sneers are different?"

I turned back to the books I was putting on the shelves. "Yes, sometimes you lift your nose wings, sometimes you pucker your lips, oh, see, I forgot that one, that's the thoughtful sneer, and sometimes…"

He couldn't wait for me to finish. "Which one do I have today?"

I glanced back at him: "The excited one. Care to explain what's got you so aroused?"

He snorted. "Arousal is not the right expression but yes, there was something I wanted to tell you. I found it in this book about experimental magic by Albert Cornubius. You know, the one who blew himself up when he tried to squeeze his magic in a bottle as a means to hide and transport it."

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, in his book he talked about what can happen if you combine two magical forces as in an adjunction. It is purely theoretical but he might have been up to something."

I felt my eyes go wide in anticipation. "Really? What did he say?"

Malfoy grinned: "For one, he said it would extrapolate the power of the magic available."

My mouth fell open. I likely looked very stupid but I couldn't care less. "By how much?"

Malfoy smirked. He was enjoying having me hang on his every word.

"It quadruples the power."

"No!" I exclaimed. And then I did a very untypical Hermione thing, I squealed in excitement and jumped a little up and down. Malfoy laughed. I calmed and my brain was working up a storm as usual. That would explain why we blew wizards over on a regular basis nowadays.

"But how can that be?" He explained what he found in the book, the author theorizing what can happen when you combine magic. And how the extra power made it so much easier to be sent out.

"Hm," I mused. "I wonder if it changes the essence, the fingerprint of the magic so to say. Too bad, we couldn't have looked at it before we became adjuncted. Ah, nothing to linger on."

Draco Malfoy eyed me thoughtfully. "I didn't notice any difference in my magic after the adjunction; only some foreign emotions at times while you were traipsing through the woods."

I was aghast. "We weren't "traipsing through the woods"; we were risking our lives and health and sanity to be able to defeat Voldemort for the sake of the Wizarding World. And we had to hide in the woods to be able to do that." I hissed at him.

He looked at me amusedly: "Isn't that what I said?"

I was still furious. "I have you know, I am traipsing through woods as much as you are traipsing through your Manor, Mr Malfoy."

Now he laughed fully. "Alright, alright, I take that back. You were prancing and flouncing through the woods. But don't let Potter and the Weaselking hear that I said that."

I jumped at him, trying to get my hands around his throat so I could strangle him, which made him laugh even harder. He still had enough strength to fight my hands off. I had just managed to get my hands close to his neck, when I heard a throat clearing behind us.

"Hrm, hrm, don't let us hear what?"

I turned around to see Harry and Ron standing in the doorway and looking suspiciously at our struggling. I blushed over the picture they might have perceived and quickly let go of Malfoy's collar.

Malfoy came to my aid. "I was disparaging your effort to save the Wizarding world by likening it with traipsing through the woods, and Granger here valiantly tried to put me right."

I saw Ron's head becoming red as usual and waited for an explosion but Harry chuckled before he could blow. Then he sighed.

"Yeah, I wished we were just strolling through and camping in the forests and marches and fields and wherever the heck we went to. It would have been so much more agreeable." Ron huffed out some air and I relaxed. If Harry could take it in stride, than Ron had no reason to explode. Even if he shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably.

Harry chortled once more. "Any news with your project?"

"I was just going to tell Malfoy before he so rudely commented on our valiant effort in the woods about how I figured something out, how to make an image of different kinds of magical energy. Yesterday, we found information that magic has different heat or energy patterns and last night, we were looking for ways to differentiate those. If we can see different patterns and tell them apart, then we can specify which ones we are searching for and change a point spell accordingly. That would give us a way to find Death Eaters with the magic they are using."

Harry looked at me wide-eyed. "That's brilliant, Mione. But how can we possibly make an image of magical energy?" Malfoy and Ron looked likewise curiously at me.

I looked at them in turn. "There is a thing, called Kirlian photography, where you can take a picture of electrical currents around an object. It takes a picture of the object as well but you can see the current in a coloured halo around. You can even do that with human body parts. If we take a sequence of Kirlian photos with a stroboscopic technique (_A/N: google it, it gives a slowed down view of a rotating or vibrating object_) of a spell caster, we should be able to see the magical energy patterns according to the spell we do."

Malfoy and Harry looked at me with gleaming eyes, Ron looked lost and furrowed his eyebrow. "Where can we do this?" and "When can we get started?" asked Harry and Draco at the same time. I grinned.

"As for the when," I turned to Harry, "as soon as I have the equipment. I'll figure out where to get that. The where, I was hoping, you could tell me. Isn't there an exercise room, a large basement somewhere here in the ministry?"

Harry beamed. "I'll go ask Gallows if they have that here. He would know."

He hugged me. "Wow, Hermione, this is going to be huge. We'll beat them, we'll get them and then we can finally live without worry."

I laughed.

"Yes, Harry, but we'll have a long way to go. I don't even know if it's going to work."

"I trust you. Usually what you hatch out works." Harry was exuberant.

I grinned, looking at Malfoy. "Yes, it usually does." He smirked and raised an eyebrow as if to say 'Is that right?'

.

_A/N: Alright, my mental knot finally burst and I got the next chapter under control. It got longer and longer and I finally had to split it in two. Maybe I'll have to split again, it's not finished yet. But I anticipate soon it'll be done, so I could give you the next update here. Don't know how long it's going to take until the next. A week at the most, though._

_As usual, let me know what you think about this. I tried very hard to keep Draco somewhat in character but it's difficult because he is changing. _

_Thank you, to all my faithful reviewers, you guys are the best. I thrive on your praise, I really do._

_Thank you, lforts, for correcting my time mistake. I meant 7:30 am, and I thought I had it figured out that "half eight" means half an hour before eight o'clock (which would make sense in my opinion). Apparently, I was wrong. It's been corrected._


	14. Getting on with life

_This is one of the M chapters for explicit sexual content. Be warned._

_M_

**.**

**Chapter 14, part 1: Getting on with life**

Hermione rolled on her back on the bed, trying to control her heavy breathing. She saw her off-white ceiling and she even discovered a crack and thought, she should fix it soon before the whole ceiling came down. She barely paid attention to the wizard next to her, breathing equally hard, who lay in the exact same position holding her hand.

She tried to gather her thoughts but they were too jumbled to think straight. That was very rare for Hermione Granger. She always had her thoughts straight. It was part of her essence.

With lots of effort, she managed a name: "Ron"

The wizard next to her moved as little as possible. He barely turned his head to look in her direction.

"Hermione," the wizard breathed on an exhale. She turned her head to look at his cerulean blue eyes steadily, and shook her head slowly.

"I don't think this is going to work."

Ron Weasley huffed two, three more times, and said:" Agreed."

"Agreed," Hermione repeated quietly. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be sad or upset or disappointed or angry.

He grabbed her hand closer and pulled her over to his side. Lying so close, she could feel his torso expanding, skin to skin. It would have been titillating if they hadn't just tried to have sex and failed miserably. It had been just awkward and they gave up after he had repeatedly groped her breasts and she had finally complained that it hurt.

He laughed, oddly relieved that the whole situation had resolved. "Best friends forever?"

She smiled back: "Best friends forever."

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****

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In the basement of the Ministry of Magic, flashes of light were flying and bursting into target objects, making them explode with bangs. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were attacking each other and test dummies with different defensive spells. Hermione came in from the adjacent room, the releases of the Kirlian camera and the stroboscop in her hand and where she had taken the pictures. For the protection of the photographing equipment, they had to be put into the next room and the pictures were taken through an opening of the wall.

"Excellent, Harry. Next, do another 'Reducto' and a 'Sectum Sempra' on one of the target objects." Filling flew through the air when the test dummy was sliced open. Malfoy stood gawping.

"Wow, was that the one you used on me?"

Harry looked sheepishly: "Yeah, sorry."

Malfoy waved his hand. "Don't apologize, Potter. It makes you look weak. Did you make a mistake by slicing me open?"

Harry looked at him flabbergasted: "Well, yes."

Draco Malfoy shook his head: "Let me rephrase that. Did you make a mistake by defending yourself?"

Harry furrowed his brow. "No."

Malfoy nodded his head. "There you go, then. What's to apologize for?"

Harry puckered his lips. "Well, I could have been more … prudent in my choice of spells to use?"

Draco shook his head again. "Are you asking me?"

Harry looked uncertain. "Well, …"

Malfoy pushed on: "Yes, well-being and prudence never go amiss but does the dunce apologize for being stupid? No, he does not. Don't apologize for not being perfect, Potter. I mean it. It makes me feel guilty for having attacked you in that bathroom. And I don't like the feeling. Besides, women find the scar quite attractive, crisscrossing over my chest." He looked down his front where his hand rested on his chest.

Harry gulped. Did Malfoy actually make fun of being disfigured for life? Draco wanted to end the discussion. "Well, go on. Hit some more targets with your mystery spell."

Hermione found it difficult to suppress a snicker and intervened before the situation got any more awkward. "He's right, Harry, we need to do more spells as long as the camera is still hot."

"You heard her, Potter, let's do another round of curses on the dummies."

Harry nodded. "Alright, Malfoy."

And the flashing of lights continued.

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_(A/N: I'm taking a bit of creative freedom here. Normally, in Kirlian photography the object has to be put under low voltage for the halo to appear and be banned on film. Obviously, that wouldn't work well with moving (human) objects throwing spells. Let's assume, our clever Hermione has found a way around that little obstacle, shall we?)_

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****

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**Draco's POV:**

Another mistake, I thought. The black-haired girl in front of me was moaning and groaning and writhing under my administrations but I could feel that she was pretending. I was thrusting hard into her. After I had brought her to two climaxes with fingers and tongue, I thought it should be my turn and so I had flipped her over and took her from behind. She was glistening wet and had a nice bum; I shouldn't have anything to complain about.

Only, I wasn't getting anywhere. The sensation that she was pretending really pulled me down. My thoughts went back to sitting on Granger's couch with her hairy orange oddball purring next to me and I thought, I'd rather have tea with Granger. However, I couldn't entirely let it go; it would do no good if word got around that Malfoy couldn't make it in bed.

So, I fantasized about every girl I ever had taken from behind because the way they buck and squeeze me when I am inside in that position, always gets me off. I enjoy the way this position affords me a view on their behinds and long backs and I fantasize about blooming red cheeks if I ever got to spanking them (_Thanks, RZZMG, for multiple stories that put that thought in my head)_. My thoughts stayed a bit on the one time I did a Hufflepuff girl in a greenhouse (never knew her name, just a Hufflepuff with a nice arse who came on to me) that I actually got to spank, she bent over a work bench, where everybody coming in could have seen us and I felt my balls constricting. I changed my position a little, gaining more friction on the girl's inner walls and I really fucked her quick and deep, hitting her inner entrance every time. She didn't say anything other than her pseudo moaning, so I was sure, it didn't hurt her and that was good enough for me.

One more fantasy about girl's squealing and squeezing and about biting into a soft neck under unruly, ruffled, curly brown hair eliciting a moan and I felt my juices coming. Just before I exploded, I pulled out to let my spunk squirt on the girl's back. To milk it entirely I helped with my own hand, thinking about a soft mouth with pink shiny lips sucking on my shaft, circling the head with a warm moist little tongue. When the last bit was out, I pushed the girl in front of me forward on her belly and fell next to her on my side, groaning. I closed my eyes lying down, I didn't want any connection whatsoever with her.

I only opened my eyes when I felt her fingernails scraping down my chest toward my line of stomach hair, close to my precious member that was quickly relaxing. I had had better climaxes while showering. I stopped her hand before she could touch it and snarled: "What?"

She purred: "Hm, Draco, I quite liked it how you became so pushy and flipped me over." 'Yeah, right,' I thought. 'Is that why you pretended?'

"You like it rough?" I snarled without looking at her, pushing her hand away and then burying my face in my hands.

"I like it with you," she kept purring, scooting closer and starting to nibble on my shoulder.

I froze. Then I lowered my hands and stared at her incredulously. She smiled at me angelically and used her stopped hand to reach on her back and wipe her fingers in my cum which she used to lube her nipple. When she saw she had my attention, she put her fingers in her mouth and licked them off. I almost groaned but not for the intended purpose.

"Morag, …"I started.

"Hmhm," she indicated her listening, while still slurping on her fingers. I was a little distracted, not to say disgusted and I couldn't bring myself to say it. While the name MacDougall was not important as a connection to the Malfoy name, it wouldn't do to reject her entirely. But she was another case of 'Ugh, never again'.

I sighed. "I need to go."

She didn't even pretend that she was upset. "Oh, do you really?"

I got up and grabbed my clothes. "Yes, really. I'll floo you." 'If I ever need another date and shag from hell' I thought to myself.

She leaned back on her side, playing with her nipples, watching me dress and smiled lazily. "Alright, see you soon." We both spoke Slytherin, we both knew that there would never be a next time but it pays to be polite and not sever bridges.

I gave her one final nod and left her room for the next fireplace.

.

****

** Still Draco's POV:**

When I stepped out of the fireplace in Malfoy Manor in the Drawing room, I was greeted by my mother.

"Draco, dear, where have you been?"

"Out, dating," I mumbled.

My mother was still a beautiful woman, if not quite warm. She had done everything a mother is required to do for her child and yet I couldn't relate to her like I could to a good friend. But perhaps that's normal. Children don't necessarily confide in their parents. And I was not going to tell her about my dating woos.

She caught my reluctance none the less. "Darling, what can be so difficult in dating appropriate women and then picking one to share her life with you? You are a handsome, educated, well-mannered young man, they should line up for you."

I shook my head. "They do, mother, they do. The problem is that they don't have to offer anything to me."

She raised an eyebrow. "What do they not have to offer?"

I sighed. How to put it into words that I didn't connect with any of them and that I refused to spend my life (and a long one at that, as we wizards lived well past one hundred years) with a woman to only fuck at night that I couldn't stand to talk to during the day? I walked over and set down next to her on the sofa.

My mother wrinkled her nose, a very delicate movement. "From the odour you emit, I presume, forgive me, that you quite thoroughly examine what they have to offer."

I shook my head again to suppress a smile. You couldn't hide anything from my mother. I was spared an answer when she continued, but very soon I wished she hadn't.

"It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that you work with a young woman regularly? Has she possibly clouded your mind?"

I was too shocked to answer right away. My mother took that as a sufficient answer.

She smiled diabolically. "I see. And is she an appropriate woman, from a good family, good breeding, worthy of the Malfoy name?"

I couldn't find my voice. Granger was none of that, but then I had never considered her for a potential match. We had gone to school together, insulted each other every step of the way and due to dubious circumstances, we had a magical connection but that was as far as my thoughts had ever gone. Yes, I'd kissed her once but that was right before Dumbledore was killed. And I had kissed girls in my life before and didn't always want to repeat. And yes, I had embraced her and felt her warm body but then, that's human nature, isn't it? Warm bodies? Potter and Weasel would also be warm bodies and I really didn't want to go further in that direction. She was part of the Golden Trio, insufferable Know-it-all, bucktoothed (well, not really anymore but those impressions stick in your mind), not pretty, Granger. I didn't even see her as a woman, really. Her appearance didn't stir my groin at all, as other women do. She was just a smart person to work with. Now that my mother guided my thoughts in that direction, though, it occurred to me that I had been somewhat colour blind in that regard. Because Granger was definitely one woman, who could hold my attention during the day.

My mother was still waiting for my answer. "Draco? What was her name again?"

I sighed again to clear my head and looked down to my hands. "Her name is Hermione Granger and no, as you remember, she is a muggleborn and not at all suitable for a marriage into the Malfoy name. But I hadn't ever thought of her that way. I just work with her."

Mother regarded me calculative. Even when she did that, she was beautiful. She put her delicate hand under my chin to make me look at her. I realized how much I had grown because although my mother is a tall woman, I was towering over her and she had to look up to me.

"Draco, darling, I've known you for 18 years. You are my son, my only son, my only child. I am aware that your upbringing was … rather difficult with regards to … certain traditions in this house. But these times are over. And as much as I'd like to continue some traditions, what is most important to me is that you are content with and in your life. Your father wanted to set a sign that the Malfoys will continue as they have been for the last thousands of years; that they cannot be brought down, even though he has to sit in Azkaban. For that he wanted you to marry quickly and continue the legacy."

She paused, collecting her thoughts. "You know, my family was the Blacks. And even though I was deeply honoured to be chosen by the Malfoy heir and to be worthy of the Malfoy name as a wife and I have held up my end of the bargain all my life, you know that there are certain … disturbances in our bloodline. We do have the occasional outliers, to put it mildly. My aunt Walburga Black was a very fierce woman who tried to make up for her sons softening of the "Toujours pur" motto. My cousin Sirius even became a Gryffindor and befriended James Potter and the werewolf Lupin, you remember? And although his brother Regulus was a true Death Eater, he died very young and I believe that shortly before his death, he had his doubts whether his brother hadn't been right all along. Then you have my dear sister Andromeda, who married for love and not for prestige, and my sister Bellatrix who married only for prestige and didn't know love or content. I don't even want to know the details of her marriage."

While talking she had looked over the Drawing room and let go of my chin. I was frozen. I had never known my mother to be anything other than 150% per cent behind the Malfoy traditions. To know, that she was aware that there were things other than the belief of purebloods being the epitome of creation, was somewhat difficult to digest. I swallowed.

She continued while looking out the window. "What I mean to say is, Draco, that you have the blood of the Blacks in you as well. And even though you are the spitting image of your father at your age and you truly are the Malfoy heir, I would understand if you took your fate into your own hands and formed it to your liking. I would prefer if you continued the traditions because it would make everything so much easier. But you have my support either way."

I was stunned. Did my mother just give me permission to pursue whichever witch I wanted, regardless of her ancestry?

"Mother, I will not shame you or the Malfoy name in my choice in wife." I tried to clarify what she had said.

She looked straight at me with a small smile. "You wouldn't, whoever you chose as a wife. You are the Malfoy heir and you need to understand that your word will be above else in this house. Of course, your ancestors have put limitations on what a Malfoy can or cannot do. But as much as they introduced it, the head of house can change it. All traditions have been introduced at one point and while they certainly must have made sense at the time, sometimes it is necessary to adjust. This time after the Dark Lord's fall is certainly a good time for adjustments. Now, it takes a sage Malfoy to change traditions wisely, and though wisdom has been known to exist in the Malfoy name, your father was perhaps not the most foresighted of men in his time as head of the house, except for his business sense. And now it is your turn to shape your legacy as a Malfoy."

I held her gaze. And although my mother's eyes were more blue than grey as the true Malfoy eyes are, I could see the swirls of emotional upheaval in them. And I understood why women always hung on looking into my eyes. It was truly fascinating. Granger always did the same thing, staring into my eyes when she thought I didn't notice. And she seemed to have to pull herself away from it.

"And did I tell you that I am about to floo my sister Andromeda? She lost her entire family and I believe she could use a family hand," my mother added an afterthought. That distracted me enough from thoughts about Granger and her eye-gazing habit. Well, my eyes only. I never caught her staring in anybody else's eyes to the point of getting lost in it. Weird.

My mother wasn't one for hugs and so I tenderly took her face in my hands and kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you, mother, for your words of wisdom."

I let go. "I'm going to bed now. I have lots to think about."

She wrinkled her nose again. "Before you do, clean yourself, please. And leave your clothes out to be laundered."

I chuckled while getting up. "Yes, mother. Will do."

I felt her smile while leaving the room for my own quarter.

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****

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The next day, Draco Malfoy stood next to his female work partner at a table with their photos spread out. Hermione Granger was currently turning one of her locks around and around her index finger, deeply in thought.

"That's the yield of our little photo session?" he asked quietly. He startled her none the less. She twitched and pulled her lock straight.

"Malfoy, you startled me."

He chuckled. "So I noticed. I explicitly tried not to. I can't help it if you are such freight."

She slapped his chest with her flat hand.

"Ow," he groaned. "Well, at least it's a step down from the slap in the face that you gave me in third year."

Hermione glared at him: "Well, you were very mean in third year. You made fun of an innocent hippogriff being murdered for your stupidity."

"Hey," he huffed. "That hippogriff attacked me and sliced my arm open."

"Only because you weren't listening to Hagrid's instructions not to insult it," she growled. "Maybe it is second nature to you to insult any breathing thing but had you listened, nothing would have happened," she continued heatedly.

He contemplated her enraged appearance. Her hair stood on edge, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes gleamed heatedly. He had seen her fierceness before, the night before Dumbledore's death. If one could turn that kind of fierceness into passion, well …she looked enticing enough already. He folded.

"I know. I shouldn't have made fun of the great oaf for whining over a dead animal."

She rolled her eyes. "There you go again. You really can't help it, can you?"

He grinned. "No, I guess I can't."

Hermione Granger sighed. Why was he always so infuriating?

"So, what can we see here?" Malfoy bent over the spread photos. Hermione looked at him sideways, saw his blond hair falling over the collar of his robe, the arch of his jaw, his features. Hermione got a whiff of his leather and citrus smell from his movement and let it satiate her senses; she liked his smell. He was a truly delectable specimen of man. Too bad he was Draco Malfoy. She took a deep breath to savour his cologne and pointed to one photo.

"See here? That's Harry doing a 'Reducto', and here, an 'Expelliarmus'. And over here, that's you doing a 'Serpensortium' like in second year. See the different halos? 'Reducto' and 'Expelliarmus' have an entirely different pattern than your spell because your spell created something. And over here, you are doing an 'Expelliarmus' as well. See how alike the two pictures are? There is a slight difference but that's because Harry's magic is different from yours, as you've told me."

Malfoy surveyed the photos. They were kind of pretty. Although he was in shadow and entirely underexposed, the colourful halo around him was really something. It made him feels powerful to see the energy that he could master and direct.

He straightened up. "And how do we extract the exact pattern so we can direct a point spell to it?"

Hermione smiled. She really liked that he grasped underlying principles just as well as she did. She was so sick of having to explain everything to death. "That's exactly what I had just been thinking about when you came in. We'll have to experiment. We'll concentrate on the pattern that we see on the photo and focus our spell directly on it."

He nodded. "Alright, let's get started. You focus your pointer on an 'Expelliarmus' pattern and I do one and we see if your pointer indicates it, right?"

She nodded as well. "Right, let's do it."

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**DMHGDMHGDMHG**

After a few hit and miss trials, they had tweaked Hermione's spell to the point that her arrow indicated Malfoy directly when he did a Disarming spell.

When Harry came in shortly after that, they showed him what they'd achieved. But when Hermione explained to him, how to focus his pointer spell and Harry tried to replicate it, nothing happened. Harry was frustrated.

Hermione was flummoxed. "Odd," she said. "Why doesn't it work with you?"

Malfoy carefully intervened. "Maybe it requires more POWER than Potter has available?" Harry huffed.

But Hermione shook her head. "No, it has nothing to do with power. It's like there is something missing in Harry to change his pointer spell accordingly."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe I'm not focused enough?"

Hermione denied. "No, I don't think so. This is very odd. Let's break for lunch and have another trial after the break."

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****

.

Lunch was a quiet affair with everybody hung in their own thoughts. Ron took care of entertainment with his stories about trying to find an apartment for his own.

"You wouldn't believe what people are allowed to write in their advertisement. 'Two bedrooms' means you have a doorframe in the middle of your apartment and you can actually turn around in it; 'three bedrooms' means a room and a niche and a closet, separate toilet means toilet out in the hallway, not in the apartment, and four bedrooms means four actual rooms and you can't afford it anymore." He shook his head wistfully. "I guess I have to take up George's offer and share the apartment above the shop for now. Until I scrunch up some money."

Draco Malfoy bit his lip. He could have helped, having many connections in real estate and much properties for rent, as well, but he did not want to help the Weasel finding a quiet place where he and Granger could be alone.

For some reason, that was something he couldn't stomach.

.

****

After lunch Draco and Hermione reversed roles where he focused his point spell on her Disarming spell and it worked just as well.

Hermione was flabbergasted. "So, why doesn't it work with Harry?"

Malfoy looked exasperated. "I told you, Granger, it likely needs an exorbitant amount of magical power and only we two have that available."

She shook her head again. "But that doesn't make sense, Malfoy. Why would it need so much power? A regular pointer requires almost no power at all, every fourth year can do it."

Malfoy looked at her thoughtfully. "You know, Granger, we haven't taken your photos yet."

Hermione looked back. "You mean it could be something specific to our magic? Our combined magic perhaps?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Maybe." Hermione bounced her head from side to side.

"Alright, let's take my pictures."

.

**DMHGDMHGDMHG**

.

Later that day, after the development of Hermione's photos they looked them over and compared them with the other photos they already had.

"Alright, so, there's me, doing a Disarming spell and a Reducto and a Stunner." Hermione pointed out.

Malfoy surveyed all the photos closely again. There in the shadow of one, he could see his own light hair and in the shadow of the other he could almost make out a bush of hair. The colour halo around the heads, though, was exactly identical.

"Granger, look at this" he urged. She bent closer to look over his shoulder and doused him in a gush of rose aroma. He inhaled and closed his eyes for a second to enjoy the scent.

"What is it? What do you see?"

Opening his eyes again, he shoved the two photos closer to her. "Compare the two photos, you and I doing the same spell. What do you see?"

Hermione bent very close over the two pictures and then looked up at him, amazement in her eyes. "The halos are the same."

He held her gaze. "Yes."

She did, too. "But, what does that mean? Our magic cannot be the same, can it? What about the fingerprint theory?"

"Well," Malfoy smirked. "I take it that the theorizer didn't consider an adjunction."

.

****

The next few days were marked by frantic action. They had to take more photos of their magic separately and together, casting the same spells and different ones, and comparing their halos against entirely different people.

Not surprisingly, Hogwarts had not reopened for September. The damage had been too great and although the castle had repaired most of the factual damage done in the final battle, much of its century old magic had been lost and needed to be established which would take several more months. Likewise, the shock of the battle and the losses of family and many a friend had been too severe to simply send children off to school again. Professor McGonagall therefore had offered correspondence courses for the seventh years with the stipulation that they could take their NEWTs if they so wished at the end of the year or repeat their entire year when the school would reopen next year. Everybody had gladly taken the year off and it remained to be seen how many would finish their education this way or if they would go back.

Ginny and Luna were therefore available and of tremendous help. They took turns taking the pictures, and casting spells for comparison. It was a good thing that they had been so well trained in defensive spells in Dumbledore's Army.

Harry and Ron checked into the photography work whenever they could. Draco Malfoy still felt uncomfortable when Ron was around because he felt that Ron took up Hermione's full attention when he was there. Which was only natural since they were dating. Draco was happy that they didn't kiss in his presence, though. He was fairly certain that he would have had to leave the room if they ever did.

He wasn't jealous. He was a Malfoy after all. Not only do Malfoys not become jealous, such a low inclination, there simply was no reason as Malfoys always got what they wanted. And he didn't want Granger. But it irked him when Granger was distracted from their work and he couldn't quite put the finger on the reason why. She wasted his time, that's what it was, he was there, ready to work and she played around with the weasel. That had to be it.

Never the less, he stayed out of the conversation when Ron was around. He was certain that he would prolong Ron's presence if he were to needle him like he used to do. So, he resisted. Granger spent most time of the day not with the weasel but with him anyway, taking pictures casting spells, developing and evaluating then, creating spells to mark particular magic.

And when he overheard a conversation between Granger and the Weaselette one night, he knew he had even more reason to stay quiet.

He had already left that one night, left to prepare himself for the next date in his row of dates to find an appropriate wife. Ginny had used the opportunity that Malfoy was for once not clinging to Hermione's side to approach a sensitive subject that she would rather not have addressed at the Burrow where everybody in sight was somehow involved.

"So, Hermione, how's the work going with you and Malfoy?"

Hermione was busy sorting the last photos they had taken and developed that afternoon. She shrugged indifferently and answered: "It's alright. He's civil and a decent co-worker."

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Civil? He rarely leaves your side. Are you sure there is nothing else going on?"

Hermione dropped a pack of photos, so that it crashed back on the table and looked wide-eyed at her friend: "Something going on? Like what? Did you forget who we are dealing with? Pureblooded Malfoy, spurner of all things muggle-born, who picks his eye-candy only amongst other pureblooded girls?"

It was Ginny's turn to shrug and she tried a nonchalant way: "Well, it's just that he hasn't used the M-word or insulted you once since I'm here, and he looks quite put out when Ron is around, but bites his lips not to say anything disparaging. I thought he did that out of respect for you."

Hermione looked away. "Yes, well, working with Malfoy is very engaging. When he abstains from spewing out prejudiced paroles and insults, his thoughts go in the right direction and I don't have to explain everything five times before everybody else has caught on. We make a lot of progress working together."

Ginny wasn't convinced. "And that's really all there is? You two working well together?"

Hermione hrmphed. "Yes, what else does there have to be?"

Ginny regarded her friend closely for a reaction: "I just want to see if you are not trying to get Ron back for hanging out with Lavender again."

But Hermione simply turned back to her photos. "Does he, now?" It didn't even sting. She and Ron absolutely didn't work as a couple and it didn't hurt that he was looking for somebody else. She was doing the same. Maybe Lavender was after all the right woman for Ron. She likely appreciated things in him that Hermione simply couldn't. This time around, Lavender could have him.

It likely showed in her face because Ginny noted: "So, it's really over between you and Ron? There is no turning back? Not that I'm surprised, but I wondered how he tolerates you working with Malfoy all day. It's simply none of his business, is it?"

Hermione sighed. "No, not anymore. Your brother and I simply fell apart. We can't make it work like you and Harry. We are better as best friends."

Ginny shook her head with a little regret: "I never understood what you see in him. If you'd picked Bill or Fred or even Charlie, I'd have understood. And I shouldn't say that."

Hermione laughed. "Don't worry, Ginny, I won't tell a soul. Bill was taken when I was in my fifth year at Hogwarts, Charlie, I almost never got to see and Fred, well, bless his soul. And it's not like I was on the lookout to become a member of the Weasley clan by marriage. I don't need to score a Weasley brother for you to be like my sister, do I?"

Ginny embraced her friend. "No, of course, you don't, silly."

Hermione smiled and embraced her back. "That's what I thought." But then she became sober again. "But I think you underestimate your brother. You know that he always suffered from being the youngest brother. Whatever Ron did, one other brother had been there before; he was never the first. Your parents don't have much money, so he had to rely on skill alone and was always compared to somebody else, mostly to his disadvantage. Being Harry's mate was the only thing that set him apart from his brothers. Ron doesn't like being dependent, though. That's what made him so angry on life."

Hermione paused to collect her thoughts. "He has a true talent, though. It is to bring clarity of mind. When Harry and I were turning in circles about how to find or get the next horcrux, stuck in improbabilities, it was always Ron who brought us back to a simpler level, who clarified the situation with the right questions, who led us to safer ground regarding our survival level, on how to get enough food, enough sleep, how to keep our strength and then approach again from a different viewpoint. When you are on a quest against all odds, such a person is invaluable. And don't forget that he went on the quest with us and we all survived unscathed."

Both stayed quiet for a moment. Until Ginny said quietly: "Perhaps you are right, Hermione. Perhaps I do underestimate him in light of our always "cooler" brothers."

Hermione smiled quietly. "Talking about food, what are you doing for dinner?"

Ginny grinned. "Mum is making her pot-roast. Do you want to join us?"

Hermione grimaced and answered: "I'd love to but I already have an engagement tonight. Rain check for tomorrow?"

Ginny nodded. "Tomorrow, then."

Ginny Weasley was satisfied. Whatever was going on between Malfoy and Hermione did not come from Hermione and she was as clueless as ever about the effect of her femininity behind her brain on the male population.

.

.

**Draco's POV:**

They hadn't heard me coming back because I had forgotten my cloak and the October air was chilly as I had noticed outside the Ministry. I had been very quiet, not because I wanted to sneak up on them and listen to their talk, but because I didn't want to interrupt them, (and explain myself and be late) when I was going to quickly dash out again. How considerate. Somebody owed me a medal. But I couldn't have helped hearing Granger's last few words, her defence of the weasel. I grabbed my cloak next to the door and turned quickly about and left over the girls chatter about dinner.

I walked the short distance to the restaurant in which I was meeting my date for tonight. By the time I reached my destination, I was so deep in thought about what I'd heard from Granger, that I almost missed it. I hadn't felt or seen anything on my way either, the beautiful foliage of the fall, the crispness of the air, the lights of the shops in the early evenings, I was too lost to the voices in my brain.

How Granger had comprehended Weasley's situation made me worry, if she encompassed my situation in a similar way, finding reasons and excuses for my shortcomings. Because I almost felt pity for the weasel by her characterization and I didn't want her to pity me. Not that I had the same circumstances as the Weasel. I had never been poor. And as a Malfoy I was above shortcomings. But I had the suspicion that being rich did not count as achievement in Granger's book and I was sure that not everybody shared my opinion of myself. And why did I even think about what counted in Granger's opinion?

All during dinner, I was more than distracted by my thoughts and less than my normally charming self. Although Carola Moon was a pleasant young woman, she couldn't contribute anything to the conversation to keep my distraction at bay and my attention on her. Thus, as soon as dinner was finished (and I can't even remember what I had), I escorted Carola home, and said a quick goodnight. I noticed her disappointed look that the night was over so quickly, she must have heard the rumours of my other exploits with females, but she was well-mannered enough to only express hope that perhaps the next time there would be more? I just about nodded my head before I turned and left.

As soon as I got home, I let my deliberation run freely.

How did Granger see me? I was civil to her now and she wasn't one to carry grudges as far as I knew. So surely, she would be professional enough to see how I tried to turn a new page and not resent my teasing in school too badly? Well, perhaps teasing was a bit of an understatement. I had been downright cruel at times. But she had showed compassion that night in the classroom, despite our animosity. And she had reached out to me, time and again. Was I a project to her? See how much you can pull somebody back from the abyss of the soul? Or was she just so forgiving that she disregarded my earlier cruelties and tried to see how I became now? Wasn't that weak?

But I didn't consider her weak. Granger was anything BUT weak. There was not a weak bone in her. She had her weaknesses, yes, like her compulsive spouting of schoolbook knowledge (something I loved putting her down for) and her control freakiness and the Weasel and her indulgence of him and his antics. She saw some quality in him, I had heard her say tonight. How she could consider thinking about food and shelter and safety all the time as a quality was beyond me, but that was Granger. Did she see some quality in me as well? Was that what this was all about? Wow, Granger, how desperate can you become in your quest to see the good in people? From her point of view, she shouldn't be able to see much goodness in the black abyss of my soul.

And she belonged to Weasley, even though the Weasel didn't deserve her. There was so much strength in Granger, so much optimism, and I knew that the Weasel was just exploiting her. Could I imagine myself, Draco Malfoy, with Granger? Not in a million years. We were too different, even apart from our ancestry. There wasn't much to go on for a relationship.

Yes, I felt comfortable working with her. Her quickness of mind without ulterior motives made working with her delightful. I could spread my own mental wings without fear of being clipped or outmanoeuvred. She picked up what I brought to the table and spun it further. And I did the same likewise. The turning of her mind was very refreshing. The way I could bounce ideas of her and she understood immediately how and if they would work, was truly exhilarating.

Yes, I could have interesting conversations with her, all day, every day. Whatever topic we broached, she had an informed opinion about it. And our verbal spars and spats about topics were quickly becoming the stuff of legends.

Yes, I had felt very comfortable on her couch with her oddball of cat. I couldn't explain that. It had just been peaceful.

Yes, I had kissed her and the air had vibrated around us. But that had been due to our adjunction which still irked me. Why couldn't I have adjuncted with Astoria Greengrass, for example? I could have a connection with her, have married her and end of story. But no, it had to be Granger, who got under my skin and raised my hackles wherever I turned. Like I needed more aggravation in life.

Yes, we were magically connected. But that didn't mean we had to be together. Ravenclaw and Slytherin had separated and lived well after.

And she still didn't stir my loins like other (prettier) women did. I hadn't even slept with her, I didn't know how prude Granger was going to be between the sheets. Likely like her nickname suggested. And I couldn't live without good shagging. So, besides being a muggleborn and completely unsuitable, she was an unknown. And there is not much incentive in popping a cherry, despite all rumours.

Granger wasn't ugly as such, I had to admit that, but she wasn't a classical beauty like the Greengrasses with their blond manes and sapphire blue eyes and soft rose skin. She was the healthy girl next door, suntanned skin with freckles over her nose, who read her books out in the backyard under a tree but was a social outsider because she considered the other girls who invested their time in grooming and getting boys' attention rather than in reading as silly geese. She had saved her social status, not amongst her peers but in society as such, when she hooked up by sheer luck with Harry Potter who turned out to be the saviour of the Wizarding world. And now, that we had all grown up and she had grown her bush of hair and insignificant features from a little girl's into what would become a delicate face with warm brown eyes and a cupid bow mouth with pink lips framed by a considerable soft mane of hair, now, she had plenty of time to groom herself if she was so inclined and all the time she had spent reading and educating herself was time the other girls could never catch up on.

And even though neither Granger nor I had spent our time as children playing rough in the underbrush (I figured for her part that she had always been reading and I knew that I never dirtied my knees), knowing that she went in the woods with Potter and Weasley on their hunt for horcruxes, sleeping in a tent, scraping food together, I knew she could rough it if she had to. She had resources that waited to be explored. I was fairly certain that Astoria Greengrass would have died of fright her first night in a tent in an unknown forest, being hunted like they had been, or would have starved not being served a warm meal three times a day.

I chuckled a bit imagining Astoria frightened and hungry in a tent and Granger next to her rolling her eyes and then consulting a book to find out which mushrooms were edible and where to find them. But thinking about Granger setting to work, scraping food together in a forest, made me realize that I would be more like Astoria, complaining in the tent that there was no proper meal instead of using my resources. I was a spoilt pampered boy who always received what he wanted with just a bit of nagging and I would never be able to live up to the kind of resourcefulness that Granger regularly exhibited. I could use my brain, yes, but there's a difference between learning what you need to receive good grades and slyly manipulating your environment to meet your ends and her way of trying to take everything in because she thirsted the knowledge and wanted to understand the whole and put it to good use. And for that reason she devoured every little scrap of information into that immeasurable brain of hers and connected it to the rest. I had to respect that, even if I could never come close to that hunger, especially the putting it for good use part.

We already encountered enough opposition working together. I didn't even want to think how much people would cut her in the street if they knew she was dating a former Death Eater. Not that there ever was a chance for it. Because she was with Weasley. And I didn't take seconds. Especially not from the Weasel.

At that point, I berated myself that my thoughts even drifted in that direction and wondered why I compared Granger to Astoria Greengrass of all women and promised myself that I would give Mother an earful in the morning for putting the thoughts of Granger as a woman in my head in the first place. And then I went to bed to quiet my endlessly turning thoughts. What I did there is none of your effing business.

.

****

**.**

As they continued to explore the pictures taken over the next few days, it turned out that their magic was vastly different when they were together in the room than when they were not. They understood immediately that that had to be an effect of the adjunction: alone, their own magic was prominent, Draco's in blue, Hermione's in dark red, but together, their combined magic in purple made an identical halo over the two of them.

What was more, in Draco's pictures alone a denture in his blue magic field could be seen, directly over his left arm. It didn't have a colour really; it looked more like a disturbance, like an absence of magic over the Dark Mark on his arm. Funnily enough, a disturbance like that could also be seen over Hermione's left arm, even though she didn't have a Mark. In her case though, her magic energy looked denser in that place, where Draco's was absent. In the pictures together, the disturbance was absent.

They couldn't make sense out of this. The difference between their respective and their combined magic was a confirmation of the theory Draco had read in Cornubius' book, that much was clear. The effect of the Dark Mark, they could simply see for themselves but why did Hermione have the same disturbance? And why did it disappear when they were together?

Hermione felt like tearing out her hair for lack of information, for the puzzles that she simply couldn't read up on.

.

**DMHGDMHGDMHG**

.

Hermione and Draco didn't exactly hide the photos of halos as they constantly pored over them to find more information or to confirm some supposition or other. But they were fairly certain that nobody else looked at them when they weren't present.

Therefore, they were more than surprised and a little alarmed when they came back from a break one day to find Luna bent over the photos, studying them closely.

Hermione almost jumped to her side. "Luna, what are you doing here?"

Luna replied without looking up from the photos: "I see that you are both infected by a barnabedoozle."

Malfoy who had been a little slower to follow wasn't sure whether to snort and make fun of her behind their backs, to laugh out loud or to simply hold back. He decided to politely hold back for now; he could still make fun of her when Loony Lovegood was finished explaining.

Hermione however, didn't hold back politely: "Luna, what on earth is a barnabedoozle?" she asked a little sternly.

Lovegood looked up at her friend and smiled. "Magical creatures. They are a little like doxies, but they don't bite. They breathe in your magic when you sleep though, and thus, change it."

Hermione Granger breathed in a very controlled way, like a parent trying to stay very calm and patient with a four-year-old trying to explain why a bird flew into the broken window when the rock is just lying on the inside. "And in what way do they change magic?"

Luna looked like she was speaking to somebody in a far galaxy. "Well, sometimes they change just a particular part of your magic, so that you can't do cleaning charms anymore or defensive spells. Sometimes they can make you do magic you've never done before and sometimes, they eat up all your magic and you become a Squib." At this point, Malfoy couldn't suppress a snort.

Because Hermione just kept breathing in a strange way, Luna continued: "Sleeping with a gurdyroot by your pillow helps to ward them off, but I take it that you didn't have one?" Her far-away look took on a calculating quality: "I wonder though why you both are infected? You don't sleep together." At this, Malfoy snorted again and Hermione made a strangled noise.

"How do you know we've been infected?" she squeezed out.

Luna looked at her strangely: "Why, by the purple colour of the halo. That's a dead give-away."

Hermione looked at her dubiously: "What's with the people whose magic was purple to begin with?"

Luna looked back seriously and shook her head: "Then they've been infected early in life. There is no natural purple magic, you know. The colour range goes from blue to green over yellow to red, but excludes purple. Purple magic always means it's either artificial, combined or infected."

Hermione Granger was stunned. "There is no natural purple magic?" she whispered.

Malfoy snarled: "Didn't you know that, Granger?"

"No", she continued to whisper, "No, I didn't. The colour of magic is an obscure topic, in the same range as palmistry and tea leaves reading. The books I've read never mentioned the colour range stopping at purple." She turned on him: "You didn't either."

Malfoy shrugged: "I'm not the Queen of research."

Hermione bristled but let it go when Luna added a little on, while looking back at the photos: "You know I've seen photos of barnabedoozle purple, which is dirty pink. The bright purple of your halos looks like a true force, though. "

Hermione didn't give up to show the nonsense of her friend's scurrile thoughts: "How do you know all that, Luna?"

"From a book my mother showed me. She was a student of Cornubius', you know. Unfortunately, she wanted to replicate all his experiments for scientific credibility and you know how his last one ended. But at the same time, she wrote on a book with her friend, Magdalena Figg. The "Essence of Magic" was supposed to be the second part to Cornubius's "Essentials of Magic". Old Alfred had retired by that time. As history had it, Magda was killed long before they could finish the book and my mother continued for a while until…, well. "

One could see the brain waves in both Draco and Hermione working in the same direction when they exchanged a quick glance. If her mother had been working on it, her father surely would …

But with Luna's next comment: "Too bad, Daddy never liked mum's work. I think my mum's work wasn't about barnabedoozles. Daddy told me about them. He showed me the pictures of their purple, too. That's why mum's photos looked different. Daddy said her work was too utopic. He wouldn't even listen to her reporting her newest results," their hopes were crushed right away.

A thought struck Hermione: "Luna, the book your mother wrote on ..?"

"Was never published because it was unfinished." Luna finished her sentence.

Hermione let her shoulders sag: so close and yet … She almost missed Malfoy's intake of breath. "Where is the manuscript?"

Her head snapped up. Good question.

Luna shrugged her shoulders. "Where all unpublished books are kept."

Malfoy looked at Luna like he was going to skewer her for barbecue. "The storage room of unfinished magical things, next to the Department of Mysteries?"

Luna nodded. "As far as I know."

Hermione caught on. "What, it's here in the Ministry?"

Malfoy's eyes gleamed. "Yeah …"

"Then, why are we lingering here?" Hermione said, running towards the door.

"Don't know," Malfoy replied and ran after her.

Luna remained behind and took a last look at the photos. Too bad, Hermione and Draco Malfoy came from opposite ends of the wizarding spectrum. They would have made a great couple, Luna thought while humming a little tune. Then she left in search of Ginny and a cup of tea.

.

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

.

Draco and Hermione made the impossible possible and had an appointment with the Minister of Magic within ten minutes and after another ten minutes, they had him convinced that they needed that book from the storage of unfinished magical things. They had explained to him that the unfinished research in the book was going to help them to refine their pointers and thus, trace escaped Death Eaters and other Voldemort supporters. And Hermione being Hermione Granger and best friend of Harry Potter, Kingsley had no trouble believing her, even with Draco Malfoy at her side.

.

.

Another ten minutes later, therefore, they were seen in said storage room presenting a written special permission, signed by the Minister of Magic personally, to the guardian of the storage, Mr Peppers.

In direct contrast to Hermione and Draco, Mr Peppers was less than enthusiastic that he had to allow strangers in his storage capacity and that he had to help them find something. Didn't he have enough work to do, cataloguing and storing magical things of dubious origin? But the permission slip was signed by the Minister, no doubt about that. He sighed annoyed and led the two young people toward the back of the room, where the unfinished books were stored on long shelves, reaching from top to bottom. Hermione couldn't restrain herself and after running back and forth several times like a foal torn between its mother and a succulent piece of grass, stormed ahead with a: "It's sorted alphabetically, right?"

Malfoy walked quietly next to Mr Peppers, tutting sympathetically about the impetuosity of young women. Mr Peppers nodded in agreement.

Before they reached the appropriate aisle, a triumphant yell reached them and Hermione came bounding back with a bright smile on her face and a leather-bound folder under her arm. "I've got it, I've got it." Malfoy couldn't suppress a grin for her enthusiasm but was careful enough to hide it before Mr Peppers.

Malfoy turned to Mr Peppers as stately as the heir of the Malfoy family could master: "Well, Mr Peppers, we thank you for your invaluable help and be on our way. Good day to you, Sir."

Mr Peppers, though, had his own ideas. "Now wait here just a minute," he said. "You can't take that with you."

Hermione and Draco stopped in their tracks and turned back around. "Excuse me?" Hermione asked him wide-eyed.

The loyal guardian shook his head: "You can't take this with you from the storage room. It has to remain here."

"But, Mr Peppers. We'll …"

"We'll just take it to our offices on the second level. It won't leave the premises. And you know who we are." He motioned in a wide sweep to Hermione. "Hermione Granger, and you know me, Draco Malfoy. And our permission is signed by the Minister personally," Draco tried to overwhelm the poor guardian with importance. He didn't look convinced. Draco glanced over at his work partner, wondering what she could do to help. He watched as Hermione's chin set and the deep frown lines in her face melted away to display a smooth female form. There was a glint of resolve in her eye when she stepped forward and put a soft hand on Mr Peppers' arm.

"Mr Peppers," she said in an alluring voice, "you are doing such an excellent job, guarding these invaluable magical objects here and it is very much appreciated. I'm best friend with Harry Potter and this manuscript will help him to find and capture Death Eaters that escaped. The Minister is very excited about our research, you can verify it with him, and I am certain that he will appreciate your help in supporting our effort." She gave him her warmest smile, fluttered her eyelashes once or twice and pushed her body close to the clueless guardian. Malfoy was baffled. He would have never believed that Hermione Granger possessed such feminine wiles.

Mr Peppers warmed to the idea to help these young upshots and the fact that a warm young female body was pressed against his and that the Minister himself would hear about his contribution did not go amiss. His face softened but he kept a stern forehead. "But no taking it out of the building. It'll go straight to your office and stay there. There is a tracer on it, I'll know if you take it away. And it'll be back in two days."

Hermione's warm smile slipped a little – two days didn't give them much time. But Draco came up behind her and calmed her with a hand in the sway of her back. He was certain there was a way to copy the content of the manuscript in two days and if not, they could try to extent their loan upon returning it. And maybe two days was enough time, anyway. No reason to make a fuzz. "Certainly, Mr Peppers, to our office and back in two days, absolutely. You can rely on us."

The old guardian held his stern face but nodded his head. They thanked him warmly again and left the storage area. Hermione punched the button for the elevator with renewed vigour. They couldn't wait to find out what was in that manuscript.

.

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

**.**

Back in their office, they separated the pile of loose handwritten sheets in the folder in half, so that they could read through it quicker. After forty-five minutes of quiet reading with just the occasional sound of throat-clearing and paper rustling and bum-shifting and quill scratching, Hermione found what they'd been looking for.

"Malfoy, I've got it," she said in an excited whisper, and then proceeded to read it aloud.

She read:

"_According to the essential rules of magic, a combination of magic is indeed possible. Different from an addition or subtraction of magic (which as we know, is illegal, as it usually requires the sacrifice of the life of the carrier of the magic to be added or subtracted), a combination of magic can take place without harm to the carriers, i.e. in an adjunction. _

_It has been theorized (see Cornubius, Alfred: Essentials of Magic) and later observed and confirmed, that a combination of magic comes with the creation of a new entity of magical energy. This new entity is separate from the carriers of the magic but closely connected at the same time and leads to the quadrupling of energy available to each of the carriers. The entire entity of magical power is only available, though, when the carriers are in the same vicinity._

_The combined magic cannot exist or stand on its own, but none the less comes with a set of rules. It is bound to the carriers' magic and its characteristics but at the same time creates its respective set of powers, dependent on the sources._

_Typically, the combined magic, as in an adjunction, shines in a purple light when seen. In accordance with our exhausting research, the brightness of the purple is dependent not on the magical strength of the source carriers but on the contrariness of them. The more alike the carrier sources are, the softer the purple. Dimensions of dichotomy that have been significantly observed (or concluded by deduction) but by no means exclusively, are age (young-old), gender (male-female), personality (soft-aggressive), heritage (pure-mixed), upbringing (rich-poor), magical inclination (destructive-creative), tastes, moods, hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, and being characteristics (tall, short, stout, lanky, scales, fur, poisonous, etc.). The authors don't know about any limits of dichotomy in the creation of the new entity but the above mentioned list has been thoroughly researched._

_Although each set of dichotomy creates its own powers, the most amazing results come with the brighter purple colour combinations. There is no telling what kind of talents the combined magic creates (So far, we've found hitherto unknown healing abilities and exceptional cooking skills. Other known adjunctions did not report (or it hasn't been documented) if they ever explored their newly created talent.) but it is inherently dependent on the set of two powers that were used to create it, i.e. something very characteristic of the magical energies will go in to create the new power._

_Because it is an artificially created entity and dependent on the carrier's magic, it tends to stay together as a whole. The sources or carriers, although perfectly fine when separated, will feel a certain relief when united again, as it enables the energy field to unite as well and become fully functional. Magic as a rule cannot be split but since this combined magic is artificially created it stretches when the carriers separate and lies dormant until reunited again, like a magnetic field that only becomes measurably significant when its poles are close enough._

_It has been reported by carriers of combined magic that after a while and with some practice they were able to feel and direct their magical waves over each other. The carriers (intimately known to the authors) reported that they could feel the direction and kind of spell being casted before it shaped properly and was sent off. It was described as being comparable to Legilimency, except that instead of brainwaves the carriers were able to read the magical waves moving._

_The question remains why a combination of magic does not occur more often and why it cannot be invoked intentionally. The authors concluded that it has to do with the fact that it is not entirely know how and extremely difficult to accomplish and has nothing to do with magical power. A powerful wizard or witch is not necessarily more likely to combine his or her magic with a partner. In an adjunction, for example, the carrier sources, as is universally acknowledged, have to be of equal magical strength and to intentionally find a counterpart of equal magical strength is extremely difficult. There have been other cases of magical combination (by obscure sources) but the cause of it was unknown. One suspects though, that because magic is very much dependent on and sometimes only functional with the emotional state of its caster, that strong emotions play a pivotal role. _

_For further reference on magic and emotions, see Agelbert Gumptious' work "Magic in Emotions"._

When Hermione had finished reading, they were both too stumped to say anything for a full two minutes.

Then Malfoy broke the silence. "So, not only are we four times as magically strong when we cast spells together but this extra magic that formed between us has a talent that we don't know as of yet?"

Hermione's face was bland. "Sounds like it. I don't think it is cooking skills, though, because I still don't do well with roasting meat."

Malfoy looked at her, totally flummoxed. Then he started to chuckle and when Hermione joined, he full out laughed. Merlin, this was at least the second time she had made him full out laugh.

When they caught their respective breaths again, Hermione asked between giggles: "What's so funny?"

Malfoy started laughing again, but got out between bouts of laughter: "I wouldn't know. I've never cooked in my life." Which in turn, pushed Hermione into a new bout of giggles.

Before they started to turn blue for lack of oxygen, they got a hold of their outbursts. Still wheezing, they asked at the same time: "So, what's next? How can we find out what we're dealing with?" And answered at the same time as well: "We'll have to experiment."

They grinned at each other.

"It's good to know that you come around to thinking like me, Granger."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, Malfoy, I could say the same."

He snorted: "Ha, as if."

Hermione huffed. "Well, we certainly are antagonistic. So, if we take the propositions in the book as true, Luna was right, our purple magic is a force. It has to be strong because we are such an opposite couple."

Malfoy sneered. "We are not a couple, Granger."

Hermione looked exasperated: "You just proved my point, Malfoy."

"As if you made one."

"Stop antagonising me. Set your brain in gear to figure out how we can find out more about our combined magic."

"At least, I have a brain. But I won't be told by you what to do. You cannot order me around like your brainless best friends, Potty and Weasel."

Hermione face reddened in anger and she felt like tearing her hair our again. "Why do you always have to fight me? It's not like I'm telling you to cut your head off."

"You might as well because I am not going to listen anyway."

"Fine, don't." Hermione turned in her chair, away from him.

"Fine." Malfoy did the same.

They sat in silence for five minutes, interspersed by Hermione's quick sideway glances to see how Malfoy was doing, until she couldn't stand it anymore and turned back around. "Aren't you the least bit curious about what we just found out? Don't you want to explore and find evidence and know more and then develop it further? I know I do, and it's killing me that I need you and your constant opposition for it," she spoke to Malfoy's back.

He turned as well and pierced her with his glare. "What about your opposition?"

Hermione eyed him as calmly as she could, given the circumstances. "How do I oppose you?"

Malfoy huffed. "You antagonize me by being in the same room."

Hermione grimaced. "Please, Malfoy, not the mudblood crap again. That is such an old hat. I thought, you'd outgrown that. Get with the times, will you?"

Malfoy sobered and looked at her, thoughtfully. "No, Granger, that's not what I mean. I have outgrown that bullshit. What I mean is that you charge the air when we are in the same room and I just react to the heightened tension. It's like something's needling my very existence when you come in. You are such an easy target and it's highly entertaining how you react to my passive aggression."

Hermione huffed. "Your "aggressive reaction" is anything but passive, thank you very much. And I can't help it if you react to me that way but I wished you wouldn't. It's very exhausting to bite my lips and not reply when the ghosts of your past come out to play. "

Malfoy still looked contemplative. "The ghosts of my past? Like my Dark Mark?"

Hermione looked warily. "That's not what I meant but what about your Dark Mark?"

Malfoy continued cautiously, thinking every sentence as it came out: "I just thought of something when we talked about heightened tension. Remember the reaction we had, when you accidentally touched my Dark Mark? And then, you touched it again and it became very hot for me and very cold for you? And how you told me you found in that one book that creative magic has temperature changes? And how we talked about that we can put a pointer on a Dark Mark? We haven't tried that yet. We got lost in examining energy patterns of spells. And I'm not saying that what we found wasn't interesting but we lost track of what we wanted to do. And I just got the feeling it's important that we get back on track."

Hermione's glare pierced him back. "The reaction to the Dark Mark. It wasn't only a temperature change, think about the photos, how your magic is absent over the Mark and consolidates over the place on my arm? There is a connection, I just know there is." She went back to the book and re-read the paragraph that Luna's mother and her friend had so painstakingly researched.

"The quadrupling of power, we already knew from Cornubius's book and we experienced it," she murmured to herself. "It's an entity with its own rules. It is separate but dependent on our magic and bound to their kind, whatever that means."

"It means that your magic develops a particular flavour. Some people are better at charms, others better in transfiguration and so on. Come on, Granger, you know that," Malfoy interrupted her thoughts.

Hermione looked at him. "So, what are you good at?"

Malfoy hrpmphd. "I'm good at everything."

Hermione shook her head. "Honestly. Even I know that defensive spells are not my forte, that I'm better at transfiguration." When Malfoy didn't deign her with an answer, she turned back to the text.

"It is stronger the more oppositional the carriers are. Well, that should make our entity one heck of a power because I don't know much that we agree upon."

"That's not true, Granger, "Malfoy corrected quietly. She glanced over to his swirly grey eyes and almost got lost again. Why did she always get lost in his grey eyes? What was so special about them, that she constantly wanted to look at them, she scolded herself. Harry's green was impressive, Ron's blue was beautiful, what was so special about a dull grey? They are not dull, a quiet voice whispered in her ear. Not like your simple brown or a flat blue. Yes, Harry's green was impressive, but so was Malfoy's grey. Simple as that. She shook herself.

"What's not true, Malfoy?" she put herself back on track.

He sighed. "It's not that we disagree constantly. And that wouldn't count for the dichotomy anyway, except, maybe as personality issues. I told you, it's the tension in the air that has us constantly bickering."

Hermione folded her arms and with a smug look on her face she questioned: "And what tension would that be?"

"How the heck should I know? All I know is that my hackles come up whenever you enter the same room. I don't even have to see you," Malfoy replied exasperated. Then he stopped short. "Wait, when you came into the room at the Manor, it actually felt good after such a long time. Until, well, Aunt Bellatrix …" His face flushed and he lowered his head. Then he remembered something else and looked up again. "And in seventh year, I've felt you in the castle, especially in your favourite niche on the seventh floor."

Her face became soft. "Ah, yes, my niche. I loved it, you could look over the Forbidden Forest, it was beautiful at dust. And almost nobody ever came there. Well, except for you." Nudging herself mentally, she continued. "What do you mean, you've felt me? And what were you doing in my niche on the seventh floor?"

Malfoy looked flustered. "I've felt your presence. Or absence, I should say. In classes that we had together, in the great hall, in hallways and so on. So I went up there, to see if it felt the same in a place I knew you had been often." He paused.

"And did it? Feel the same?"

Malfoy looked down to the floor again. "Yes. It was even stronger. Like there was something missing. Like you had a favourite knick knack on your mantelpiece that had gone missing. And then, when you came into the Manor, even under the terrible circumstances, it felt whole again. Until, well, you know."

Hermione stepped closer so she could look under his lowered face to catch his eyes.

"How did you do it? I never asked you. How did you take the pain away?"

Malfoy saw her eyes searching his. There she went again, staring into his eyes. He knew he was handsome and that his eyes fit his face rather well but he didn't think they were that special. Just the Malfoy grey; same as his father's eyes. But in Hermione's eyes, for the first time, he saw that they were not simply brown. Well, they were plain brown, alright, but it was chocolate brown, the smooth brown of milk chocolate, his favourite sweet. And of hot chocolate. And it felt warm looking into them, just like hot chocolate going down your throat and warming you from within. Warm. _(A/N Thank you, Stephenie Meyer. I am aware that you used the imaging. I came from a different angle though.) _He remembered that he'd had that feeling before. But other than that he hadn't felt warm since the last time his mother had cuddled him when he was about six. The Slytherin common room in the dungeons at Hogwarts had always been heated, of course, but it had been clammy and cold when you moved out of the room. There was a reason Slytherins were bitchier than the other houses.

But he couldn't answer her question. "I don't know, Granger. I wish I could tell you. But I can't. All I remember is that I grabbed something flapping in the air and I pulled."

"Didn't it hurt?" Her eyes hadn't left him yet. He couldn't look away.

"Of course, it hurt, Granger. Merlin, don't you remember? But I had to hold on, I couldn't let go if I wanted to. It was almost compulsive. I wanted that good feeling back, the one when you had entered the room."

Hermione looked thoughtfully. "Do you feel it now, when you come in the morning, does it feel better when I come in?"

"No, and that's what I don't understand. Now, all I feel is the tension when you come in. The aggravation, the Oh-Merlin-what's-she going-to say-first-frustration. How's she going to spurn you today?"

Hermione was aghast. "Spurn you? I don't spurn you. I'm always waiting for your first insult and when it doesn't come in the first sentence, I'm waiting for it all day. Sometimes I have a headache at night because I pulled my head in all day waiting for the blow."

Malfoy looked taken aback. "You are expecting blows from me?"

Hermione nodded. "Always."

Malfoy furrowed his brow. "But you always take them in stride, you always look so strong about it."

Hermione looked down. "Doesn't mean they don't hit the mark."

Malfoy exhaled. When she said that, her shiny locks falling down around her face, twining her hands in front of her, she looked like a girl. Not like Granger, the bossy Know-it-all, the fierce person when she fought for what is right, the powerful witch that could beat you in a heartbeat, but a girl who likes to lean back on her man, who likes to be embraced, who is soft when you touch her. He shook his head. What was wrong with him? Granger and soft? Not bloody likely.

"What can I say, Granger?"

She looked at him and her eyes were still warm, despite the fact that she'd just told him that he cut her to the bone, every time he insulted her: "Sorry would be a good start."

He sneered: "Malfoys don't say sorry."

Hermione snorted. "Well, maybe that would be a good start to refresh the legacy."

He frowned. She knew that, didn't she? That he was trying to change his legacy? Good grief, Granger. What didn't she know? "How do you know that?"

Hermione looked away. "It's obvious. You are trying very hard to do something that you would normally not do. You associate with people you wouldn't normally look at. And you work hard. I wouldn't have made half as much headway without your efforts."

She looked back at him. "You are trying to change the view of the Malfoys in the public eye."

He let his head sink back. "Yes. I do. And it's freaking hard."

Granger remained quiet for a while. Then: "Let's figure out our magical connection and perhaps it'll help with the legacy.

Malfoy sighed. "What else can we figure out today?"

She grinned. "Not much more because I'll have to leave on time today."

"And why is that?"

"I have a date."

"Lo and behold. Hermione Granger has a date."

"Oh, sod off. You have a date every second day."

"But it's my duty to date. You can do it for fun."

"Fun. Yeah, oh, yeah, fun, that's it."

"No fun?" he grinned.

"Oh, absolutely, there is fun to be had, "Hermione admitted with an eye roll.

Malfoy chuckled. "Yeah, right. Care for a drink before we leave off for today?"

"I can't, I have to go."

"Already? Say hello to the weasel."

Grabbing her cloak, Hermione laughed: "His name is Ron." And with that she left.

.

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

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**Hermione's POV:**

I didn't really know why I never got further than a first or second date with any man, well, except Ron. There were a few after him, but let's take Anthony Goldstein as an example. The first time I had gone out with him, we had gotten through a lively dinner conversation. He had been a Ravenclaw, I couldn't say anything against his level of intellect. It had been entertaining but I couldn't bring myself to invite him in after he had walked me home and I didn't even know why. A kiss on the cheek was the maximum I could do.

He didn't give up though, and asked me out a second time, and with Ginny's help, I had prepared myself better. I had to admit, I looked good that night. Anthony, of course, took it as encouragement. I have no idea what he expected from dating Hermione Granger, well, me. I'm pretty sure it wasn't my looks, and my intellect, although sufficient, was nothing to score with when it came to men. I never asked him.

Well, this second time, I had berated myself beforehand, not to be so picky. I could do with a good shag, I was only nineteen, I wasn't on the lookout for husband material, even though wizards marry young (and live longer, a recipe for disaster, in my opinion), live a little and so on.

Thus, I did invite Anthony in and we had after dinner coffee on my couch. And when every one of his movements brought him closer and closer to me, I let him. Even when he wrapped his arms around me under pretence to feel my hair, I let him. Go with the flow, kiss, shag, see another dick, have a good time, Hermione, I scolded myself. His first kiss was alright, I suppose. Not as wet and sloppy as Ron's, but then, I was in love with Ron when we had kissed, so you forgive and forget easily.

Anthony's lips were firmer and more experienced. But there was an ideal kiss in my mind, of soft lips and a citrus smell, one that took my breath away and made the air vibrate and shimmer around me, around us. And Anthony wasn't even in the same galaxy. You think too much, Hermione, I heard myself scowl in my mother's voice. And so I let him move even closer and bend me backward and start to unbutton my shirt.

But I wasn't really disappointed, when Anthony bent over my throat and tried to support himself behind me and put his weight on Crookshanks, who had curled up behind me as he always does.

Crookshanks exploded in a ball of orange fur because of the sudden pressure on his sensitive belly and hissed and spat that would have given a Weasley firework a run for its money and in his shock, Anthony got up and mumbled something about a cat allergy and was gone in a second. I didn't blame him. Crookshanks in a fit is a sight to behold. I think, only Malfoy could have stared him down in his state. It made me giggle to imagine Crookshanks and Malfoy facing off in a staring down contest. Then I chuckled a little more thinking about Crookshanks curled up before Malfoy's chest, when he slept that one night on my couch. And then I went to bed to take care of my little arousal problem. For some reason, grey in all shades was a prominent colour in my erotic fantasy. Weird, I know. But I slept like a baby afterward.

.

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

_._

_A/N: This is the chapter of all chapters. It is meant for them to find out most of what their adjunction brings for them. Because it's all convoluted and much connected they will have to find out a lot at once and a little more down the road. Because of this it has also cost me much sweat and time and effort to bring it to paper and I'm not sure if I did it right. Please, let me know if you find inconsistencies. Also, can anybody guess where this is going?_

_If you can guess, I'll mention you by name in the next chapters._

_When I started out, I had it somewhat sketched out and then it became longer and longer. I split it in half and then had to do it again because it got even longer. The next two parts will be equally long in the end. This whole process took weeks because I had to find ways for them to find out in credible ways (because I knew, what they had ;-))). I think I got it now but I feel worn out because it was such a piece of work to do. JK Rowling took five years from the time Harry marched into her head to sketch out her books and I'm trying to do it in weeks, even if mine isn't quite as long. But I want to get to the good part._

_So, the second part will come soon and then, there will be a third part to Chapter 14._

_As usual let me know what you think about it and if you would have done something different and how and so on. All reviews are appreciated. _

_I thank my faithful reviewers, I'm getting there, 18 looks better than 2._


	15. Compow

_A/N: Ah, Mrs Moony86, your review warmed my heart. To know that readers see my story as different from other stories is very good to know, because it is very hard to skirt around similarities with other stories. I give credit wherever I've seen something alike and work hard to make it as different as possible. Sometimes it can't be helped. Dramione stories need to have certain elements, in my opinion._

_I pay very close attention to the fact though, that Draco and Hermione are NOT magically forced together. Many stories have a potion accident or spell that forces them together and I read a story where they naturally have to doubt the nature of their feelings because of that and that made me think that I don't want that for them. I want them to have free will in my story. Everything they do, they do because they WANT to do it. _

_So, 'no' to sexual compatibility as the power of their combined magic. Interesting thought, though, because I do like it hot. You've been giving me idea, 86, bringing down the house, hm. Too bad that chapter is already written. But I can promise you something for your smutty brain (fans herself). You'll just have to wait a little more._

_This (part of a) chapter will give more clues, you can aim a little higher than compatibility. It is interesting to see also, that readers see attraction between them because they are not really attracted yet (well, maybe subconsciously). So far (or up until the last chapter), they still see each other as "Hermione Granger, yuck" and "Draco Malfoy, shudder", falling prey to their own prejudices and couldn't see each other for the world as a sexual partner. But there is something between them that draws them in and we are getting warmer. Because you can find somebody exactly right for you, even if you don't like him or her in the beginning, for whatever reason. There will be a few bumps in the road, though and they will dance around each other for a little more. And I better get my story out quickly before Anne M Oliver uses up all the good lines. Thank you's to aqua77 and VampiteQueenBrittany for your reviews._

_With that final word, on to the story. Enjoy. M_

**.**

**.**

**Chapter 14, part 2: Compow**

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**Draco's POV:**

Granger looked thoroughly relaxed and well-rested when she came in the next morning. I was able to imagine what could have given her relaxation and it didn't sit well with me. Rather like an unsuitable suit and I hardly knew that feeling. It was just very uncomfortable and I didn't like the feeling. At all. I wasn't jealous as such, I had no claim on Granger and I didn't want one in any case. And I wouldn't have noticed or said anything if she hadn't appeared so particularly well-balanced on that day, so different from her usual high-strung and jumpy disposition. Particularly when I am usually not well rested after a date. A certain possessiveness made itself known and having Granger look thoroughly shagged didn't go down well. In fact, I would say, I was rather grumpy knowing that Granger had been with the Weasel the previous night.

So, when we set to work again, experimenting, sending defensive spells at each other to gauge their effect on our mutual magic to find out anything about it, my execution of spell casting was rather forward. When Granger barely blocked off a jelly-leg jinx just in time, because it came on so strong, she hissed in surprise: "Wow, what was that?"

I grinned grimly.' If you can shag, you can work the next day, Granger', I thought, said "Tough luck, Granger." and sent another spell just like it the same way. This time she confronted me: "What's the matter with you, Malfoy?"

"Nothing," I replied stoically.

"Are you alright?"

"Certainly."

"Oh, good," she replied sarcastically. "I don't need to fear for my life, then."

"Not at all," I replied dryly and sent another one just like its two predecessors her way. Bam.

When it almost hit her and smashed into the wall behind her with a loud bang and sparks flying, she exclaimed: "Malfoy, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," I repeated snarkily. But I had to hide the fact that I quite liked it when she swore. It made her look more enraged and I quite liked that look on her.

She didn't believe me anyway: "If it's nothing, why do I need to fend for myself?"

I couldn't hold my reasons back entirely but I tried to make it sound like I was distracting her: "Maybe, if you kept your focus on your work you wouldn't have to fight so hard."

She narrowed her eyes: "I was totally focused."

I smacked my lips. "Ah, I could have sworn you were distracted by whatever perspired last night."

"Ah," her face relaxed a little as she finally understood. "My date." She smiled a bit.

I held onto my face, so it would show only contempt and not my burning curiosity, and folded my arms to wait for her reply. I didn't have to wait for long.

"My date was unspectacular but progressing nicely until he leaned onto Crookshanks behind me and Crookshanks exploded in a fit. There are few men who can take my cat like that and last night, he wasn't one of them. He left a few seconds after that," she reported as soberly as possible.

My brain jumped on her words „date" and „unspectacular" and send relaxation signals through my body. Those were not words you used when you've been shagged senseless. The signals however, didn't get to my mouth in time because it asked: "Progressing nicely where? Why did he lean on your cat?"

Her glance pitied and scrutinized me at the same time and she folded her arms over her chest likewise. "What do you think? Crookshanks usually sits curled up behind me."

I had to turn away so that she wouldn't see my anger. In my mind I had to smile a bit against my will. Crookshanks, protector of maiden virtue.

But I was angry that I was angry that a guy had tried to get into Granger's pants. Why did it bother me so much? I didn't even want her. I just didn't want to share my work partner because Malfoys don't share. Was that it? It had to be. I couldn't explain my anger any other way.

I inhaled deeply and got control over my face again. When I turned back to her, she still scrutinized me.

"What, Granger?" I barked.

"Ready for the next round of spells?" she challenged.

"I was ready before you were born."

She rolled her eyes. "Right, Malfoy. Hit me, then."

And so I did. I hit her with my most prestigious 'Levicorpus' and she wasn't able to fight it off in time. All my anger over the fact, that she let other men touch her went into that one spell. She made a surprised sound of "Whoops" and was lifted up in the air feet first, her hair falling over her face, then down, her jumper dangling down, exposing naked smooth stomach skin but stopping before exposing her bra-clad breasts.

I was a little shocked that I got her. Even though DADA spells were not her forte as she said, this was Hermione Granger and you were not well advised to underestimate her speed and proficiency at spell casting. The shock must have shown in my face because she started to fulminate as soon as she saw it.

"What …. You … Malfoy, let me down this instant." She smoothed down her jumper and put her hands on her hips and scowled. Ah, this was the Hermione Granger of old, the one I could rile up like no one else. I had somehow missed her, now that we got along so amicably. I had missed our tit for tats that made the air sizzle and burn.

"Why, Granger, not enjoying the view?" I tried to needle her. It was so entertaining when she gave you her all.

"No, I'm not. And you will let me down immediately or I'll curse your pants (_A/N, yes the pants, not the trousers) _off and shrivel up whatever is below so fast, that your descendants will know it."

Ouch. Did she really threaten to shrivel up my manhood? You just wait, you little …

"You'll have lots of work to do then. What's in my pants is not that easily shrivelled up, there's too much of it."

"Ha, Malfoy. In your dreams. I know just the right spell for it, size doesn't matter."

I felt my eyes bulging. "What do you mean, size doesn't matter? Size is what counts the most."

"Oh, you little lamb, you have no clue, do you? It's the technique that matters and I can do my spell even hanging upside down," she jeered.

I snorted. "Little lamb, did you call me? I'll have you know that nobody ever complained about my technique. I am the master. "

But she had distracted me enough with her comment to be able to cast a 'Finite incantatem' on herself and turning gracefully in the air, made a landing on her knees, if not quite on her feet. Before I could react, she held her wand in position and petrified me to kingdom come with a bang. I fell backwards and she wandered over to take a look at me lying on my back. She straddled over my prone body.

"Well, Malfoy, care to experience what I can do with my little spell?" She poked her wand into my loin area. Granger, you little minx, if you take this spell off me, you'll be in for it, I thought. I tried to shake my head but a Petrificus Totalus is a total petrification and Granger's was complete. I couldn't move a muscle. She read my eyes, however.

"No, hm? Little Malfoy too important for your dating business? What would the other witches say if it's only half its previous size? You'd be the laughing stock," she hissed.

I knew she was playing games to get me back for lifting her in the air. I was a Slytherin; playing mind games was second nature to me. I would have laughed it off if Hermione Granger's powerful wand hadn't been on my most precious appendix, which did not make me easy. And I believe I couldn't keep my eyes from blinking once or twice. She drilled her wand a little deeper into my loin and I became certain that if I had not been stupefied there would have been movements in my pants. I closed my eyes to get a grip on the powerful surges through me.

"Hm, Malfoy, do you like this? Shall I poke a little more? A little to the left, a little to the right, or right down the middle?"

Now, being petrified means, you cannot move a muscle. It doesn't mean that you cannot feel anymore. And I felt the stroke of her wand down the middle, hell yes.

But I didn't want to. I wasn't going to get a hard on because Granger had stroked me. I struggled against the magical restraint and with my eyes closed Granger wasn't able to see what I tried to do. Having nowhere else to go, I focused inside on my magic and I felt the strange mutual magic that belonged to Granger and me together, lying right over it. When I focused on the overlap of my and the combined magic, something clicked in my head and I could see all of a sudden how the purple energy mass interweaved with her spell's magic to neutralize the petrification. The restraint resolved and my arms snapped up, dislodging Granger from my torso. I was over her and pushed my wand at her throat in the fraction of a second.

Granger eyes were wide as saucers but became angrily narrowed right away again.

"You…," she growled. The air shimmered between us, even though there were barely five centimetres.

"No, you," I replied heatedly. "How dare you poke my family jewels?"

"And you," she bellowed back, "how dare you lift me up like a piece of meat on a hook?"

The shimmer in the air condensed. I snarled. She growled. If we had been dogs, we would have snapped our teeth at each other. The only difference being that even in the submissive position she would not give up. The air took on a wave form, rolling back and forth between us. She tried to shake me off, but I put my weight on her to hold her down.

"Malfoy, get off me," she yelled enraged.

"Not until you apologize for poking me." I snarled back.

"I won't before you apologize for lifting me head down in the air," she growled back.

"You deserved that, you didn't pay attention." I growled.

"I wouldn't have had to pay attention, if you hadn't attacked me in the first place," she hissed maliciously and shook her upper body again. The struggle made her cheeks flush and her hairs stand on end. She looked like a red-cheeked angel with a halo beneath me. Not to mention her delicious enragement that made the air bristles around her.

When I looked directly down in her face I was able to discern the air wave moving between us. The form and movement of the wave became very obvious. It swashed to me whenever she growled and to her when I growled.

I was going to say, I wouldn't have needed to attack you if you hadn't let the weasel get into your knickers, but I was distracted by the air movement. She had seen it, too. I could see it from the direction her gaze was taking. I let her go and sat back on my hunches. She sat up as well. The air still moved between us, sloshing back and forth, back and forth.

"Malfoy, what is that?" she whispered.

"Don't know," I replied and tried to poke the air wave with my wand. It dodged and moved to me. I willed it to move to Granger and it changed direction to her. I gasped.

"Granger, try to make it move to me. Just focus on it." She looked at me wide-eyed but complied.

Half a second later the wave came back to me. I sent it back to her and it turned mid-air.

Granger giggled. "It's like a magical ping-pong."

I frowned. "What's a ping-pong?"

Granger grinned. "It's a game where you use paddles to hit a little plastic ball back and forth over a net on a table. Somewhat like we do now. Let's see if we can make it do other movements."

I thought about it doing a circle and it went into a nice round turn. "Yep, it's doing cartwheels for us now."

Granger looked in awe. And then the wave made a zig-zag. She giggled again.

"Granger, stop the annoying giggling and tell me what it is."

She giggled again. "I have no idea but it looks benign." I rolled my eyes, not one request obeyed. Just then the wave went over me and I ducked in alarm.

"Relax, Malfoy, I just directed it behind you. And I want to see if it can touch you as well."

I felt something like a tap on my magic behind my back. "Yup," I said. "Felt that."

"Wow." Granger was impressed. I directed it towards Granger's front. It came around over my shoulder and tapped on her left breast. She rolled her eyes. "Very mature, Malfoy. You think it recognizes that it touched my breast, now?"

I grinned. "Don't know, there's not much to recognize."

That made her scowl. "Yeah, well, we can't all have double D's like Parkinson."

I scoffed. "Pansy doesn't have double D's, she's just about a C cup." (_A/N: That's American bra sizes. In European sizes a double D would be an F, I think. I'm still trying to figure that out.)_

Granger rolled her eyes again. "Really, now, Malfoy, could have fooled me. Good thing that you know so exactly." She got me there. Should have kept my mouth shut.

I sneered, trying to recover my lapse. "Yeah, well, Pansy is quite generous with her body measures."

She shuddered. "You mean to tell me, she announced it in your common room and you didn't see for yourself when you were shagging her in fourth year?"

My eyes widened again. That was close to the truth. "How would you know if I was shagging her in fourth year?"

She waved a hand. "Please, Malfoy, you took her to the Yule Ball and I figured that needed some kind of repayment."

That comment made my blood boil. The presumptuous little Gryffindor. I hissed: "So, you think you can judge me by the fact that I took out a girl, who is a good friend, to a ball and conclude that she let me shag her for the honour of taking her? Are you calling Pansy a slut?" She looked a bit concerned that I defended Pansy and myself so vehemently. "You bloody Gryffindor, how dare you deplore us like that? Like your Gryffindor sluts didn't do the same? Do you know how many guys Brown slept with or your Patil twin? And then you roll it all off on us Slytherins?"

The wave came back with a vengeance, knocking on my forehead and bouncing off to Granger's. But we were too immersed in our spat to comment on it.

At "bloody Gryffindor" she had narrowed her eyes to malicious slits and when I was done with my rant, she took a deep breath and started her own.

"So, maybe it came out wrong but I never said I meant Slytherins. And whether we had sluts in my own house is beside the point. I meant Parkinson specifically because she was the one who went around in fourth year, telling everybody who would or wouldn't listen that she slept with you. We were fourteen or fifteen, for Merlin's sake. She made it sound like you couldn't get enough of her and that you two went at it every opportunity you had and in every position possible because she was sooo good and because she had 'big tits'."

I was taken aback. Word had gotten around in fourth year that she was talking about dating me, but at the time it had made perfect sense and I'd let her. What exactly she had boasted about amongst her girl groups, I apparently never knew. But Granger wasn't finished. She sat up on her knees as well and bristled more due to her rage and the air between us sparked.

"And talking about judging somebody and drawing conclusion from erroneous assumptions: who was it who called me a mudblood for six years, taking prejudiced presumptions for universal knowledge?"

I scoffed: "Yeah, well, I was a brainwashed child, isn't that what you said in my defence? How was I to know that you didn't have scales under your always too large jumpers? That you didn't really have dirt in your veins that makes you filthy? That you hadn't stolen your magic from somebody else and killed him or her in the process?"

"You believed I was a murderer who stole her magic from somebody else?" she shrieked in outrage. "And that I wasn't a regular girl like everybody else? That I didn't have feelings that you stamped on time and again when you bullied me?" She had worked herself up to a yell; her face an enraged mask like a fury. If it hadn't been aimed at me, it would have been quite impressive. "Oh, well, that explains why you tormented me for perhaps the first two years. But after that I would have expected the 'Great Malfoy' to catch on and work his brain and realize that it wasn't true. Isn't that what you think of yourself, that your brain is the size of your Gringott's vault? Even if that was true, apparently you don't quite know how to use it," she finished snappishly.

Now she had made me furious: "Are you saying that I was too dumb to realize that my childhood influences were just that and that I should have known that my parents were lying to me when it came to the Dark Lord and his propaganda?"

She sneered: "I'm saying that you used your parents' ideology and your family name where it fit your needs and wants, namely where it got you into girls' knickers or into teachers' good books. That you were quite aware how much rubbish it contained and that you decided to use it for your own purposes when it suited you. Until it bit you in the arse and that was the night I found you hiding in that classroom, crying your heart out." You wimp, she didn't say but I heard her quite clearly.

Malfoys, Slytherins for centuries are the epitome of emotional restraint but in that moment, I lost it. Again. Like I did the night of the adjunction in my hospital bed. What was it about this enraging bushy-haired witch that made me lose control time and again? "I wasn't hiding, I needed a quiet place to think things through, and then you barged in and ruined everything and even put Snape on my trail, so I had to fight him off again for wanting to 'help me'," I yelled at her. And I never yell. I become quieter when I'm angry.

The shimmery air had stopped its swapping between us and consolidated visibly. It shook somewhat, like the air shakes in a shaking building. But we were too focused on our spat, too determined to slug out everything that ever stood between us to notice at the moment.

"Oh, right, like your wailing wasn't enough to alert each and every one of our teachers to your presence so far from your common room. It had nothing to do with me. You did this all to yourself," she hissed.

"I wasn't wailing," I yelled at her again. She scoffed. And there was something else she had said that bothered me to no end. "And what about you and your two 'wonder boys'? You want to tell me that you never let one of them in your pants while you were hanging out? Never took them both at once?"

She snapped. In her fury, she growled deep in her throat. And then, almost foaming at the mouth, she cried out and tried to jump me with her hands stretched out in front of her. So typical Gryffindor. A Slytherin would never physically attack somebody. That's what wands and spells were for.

But that was the exact moment, when the air between us exploded. I was pissed off to the end of time and she was pissed off to eternity and back and when we both matched our stubbornness and prejudices against each other, the condensed air blew up into our faces. In a purple flash.

We both flew backwards from the blast. Granger, being lighter than I was, knocked her head when she hit the wall behind her, whereas I was only thrown back and down a few meters. The air flowing over me made my skin prickle. Fortunately, that was only a very short sensation and then the shortness of breath from the blast predominated. I wheezed a few times until my airways were free again and then I looked for my work partner. She leaned against the wall across from me, her head a little tilted to the side and she was knocked out cold.

"Granger," I coughed. No answer.

"Granger," I tried again. Nothing. My voice sounded strangely hoarse in my ringing ears.

I struggled to my knees and crawled my way over to her, very slowly, feeling pain in my side and back from where I landed on my bum. I was glad nobody could see me at the moment: a Malfoy on his hands and knees crawling towards a muggleborn was a sight never seen before; at least not to my knowledge. When I made it over (with frequent breaks, coughing and wheezing on the way) I kneeled over her and gripped her shoulders to right her. She sacked right back, so I had to push her over with my front, leaning her upper body against mine.

"Granger," I tried to rouse her again, patting her cheek. Still no response.

'Fuck', I thought in sudden panic. Was she dead? Come on, Granger, you can't be dead. There would have been one heck of a lot to pay if Granger had been killed in my presence because we were bickering as usual. They would have my head and that would be the end of the Malfoy family. My poor mother. Losing husband and son in a matter of weeks.

Calm down, Draco, I admonished myself. Stop your rambling. Check her heart beat, check her breathing, check first if she even is dead before you panic and write your epitaph.

From patting her cheek, I still had my hand on it and my wrist was under her nose. The hair on it stood up from air flowing over. Alright, she was breathing. Not dead. Thank Merlin. Just to make sure, I put my hand on her chest as well. A heartbeat. For all that's holy, Draco, you're safe. You didn't kill Granger.

I sat back on my legs again, Granger leaning against me, and I took up one of her hands out of her lap, just to have something to hold onto. Now that I calmed a bit, I figured I just had to wait until she recovered. The relief that she was just knocked out was palpable. I felt my muscles give way and the pain in my back overwhelm me, so I had to lean against the wall myself to keep from falling over. It could take a while before she woke up, I thought, so I better got comfortable. It occurred to me briefly that nobody had come running from the blast but the basement room was very deep in the bowels of the ministry. Likely nobody had heard it.

I pulled Granger's body closer to mine, between my outstretched legs, and leaned my back against the wall, inhaling and exhaling deeply to overcome my own shock from the blast. With her head resting on my chest, my exhales on her head made her hair move and her scent of roses wafted up to me. I inhaled again. Why did she have to smell so good? All the other girls I had encountered before had used perfume but Granger smelled naturally like she lived in a rose garden; like she was a rose. It was enticing. It was natural. It was…honest.

Everything about Granger was honest. Natural. No pretences. If something pissed her off, you would know it. If she was happy, you would feel it, and she would share it with you. If she was sad, she would let you know. She didn't play games. Granger was the most honest thing in my life, I realized. And I would have missed it big time had she really died from the effing blast.

Thinking on, I understood how much energy I invested every day to keep up the façade of the Malfoys, to play a particular role, to manipulate and counteract the manipulation of the people around me. And I was fucking tired of it, now that I knew how it felt to not have to do that, to just let your thoughts run freely without having to worry about the restraint your role brought with it. I knew the free and honest interactions with Granger would remain an exception and the mind games and manipulations with my acquaintances would continue. You don't just erase eighteen years of upbringing and social conduct overnight and start over.

But I was tired of the constant lies that I lived in. Especially had lived in before Voldemort had snuffed it. Good riddance, you bastard. Literally. You were a fucking bastard whose mother had to hex your father to sleep with her. And I would feel pity for you if you hadn't made my life a fucking hell the two years before Harry Saint Potter put your light out. I didn't even want to think about how my life would have become had Potter not done that.

Don't get me wrong, I was not going to become Potter's next best friend or start grovelling in front of him. I couldn't forget all the insults and rips we had given each other over the years so quickly. But I had to give some credit to him and his Trio for going to the length they did to finish the monster. They said I'd helped. But in all honesty, my contribution was a pittance compared to their work and sacrifices. The best I could do now was to try to be civil with them and give them their due respect. And to figure out the connection I had with Granger. And what it could do.

I looked down to the hand I still held. It was definitely a female hand. The ink splotches that had been on Granger's hands all the time while we had been at school were missing now. There was a little pressure point where she rested the quill on her right middle finger. The nails were longer than a male's nails would have been and formed in perfect half rounds. She wasn't petite, Granger, about 5ft6 or 5ft7 but her hand was as slim as the rest of her and hid easily in my large hand. It was still limp from its owner being knocked out. And the air still gleamed over it.

What was it with this air shimmering? And why had we been knocked by a blast? What had that been? We had bickered, nothing unusual about that, than it had gotten a bit more heated than usual, and when she had jumped me the air had exploded. And before that the air had started to condense and form and move directed. What had she called it? Pong-pong, or something, it had bounced back and forth like this muggle sport. It had exploded with a purple flash, so it likely had to do with the combined magic. At that point, I let my head sink forward until my forehead rested on Granger's head, feeling her soft curls on my skin.

Wake up, Granger, tell me what it was. I might be a pureblood who had grown up being told about and experiencing everything magical but even I didn't know what it was. We already had to find obscure sources from Lovegood of all people. Wait, Lovegood's mother's book. What did it say? I pushed my brain to remember.

The adjunction creates a new entity of magic, which is purple because it results from a combination. Its force is stronger the stronger the contrariness between what she called the carriers of the original magic. It quadruples the power because it doubles the power of each contributor and makes it available to both carriers but only when they are close. It is separate from the carriers and has its own power but closely connected as well and cannot exist without the carriers. Which led me to believe that I would feel when it stopped existing because Granger was dead. And I still felt it. Should have occurred to me before, when I panicked and checked for her vital signs.

Hm, when she had me stupefied I could dig into my magic and where it connected with our combined power (we had to find a name for it, it was getting bothersome to talk about combined magic all the time; our comb, no, that's silly; our combi, sounds like a car, a muggle contraption, absolutely no. Compow, hm. I would run it by Granger when she woke up.), anyway, where my magic connected with our compow (there, not too bad), I had insight in her spell and was able to neutralise it. What did the book say again? The carriers will be able to feel and direct their magic with some practice. Maybe they were also able to see it with some practice?

I had been able to direct it. I almost chuckled when I remembered her upset when I made it tap on her breast. Was I still able? I looked down at her hand in mine. I saw the air shimmering and willed it to stroke her hand. A flow of waves over her hand materialised. Yes. Larger objects, now. Over her entire arm? Yes. Her legs? Yes, although her legs were quite long. With her sitting between my legs our feet were at the same level. Hm. Long-legged Granger. I would have to check the next time she stood up. Perhaps I never saw it because her jumpers always hung over her bum and almost halfway over her thighs, hiding her female form.

But enough of her body parts, it was creeping me out to think of Granger and body parts. Next I was going to think, she had a nice bust or something equally hideous.

Other objects, then. Apart from her body. The floor next to us. The wall behind us. The door back there on the other side of the room. All Yes. All reachable with this shimmering air. Alright, then. Now what to do with it?

Just then Granger groaned and shifted a bit against my chest which put my attention back on her. Since I had set back against the wall with her between my legs, only a few minutes had passed (I'm a quick thinker) but the place she leaned against felt warm and the areas she had just shifted away from were now exposed to the elements and felt colder. But the more sensitive body parts were still warmed and rubbed by her back and that felt good.

Merlin, how could such a slim witch from muggle descent be so powerful, I guided my thoughts in another direction. Her Petrificus had immobilized me good. Oh, right, quadrupled magic. Thinking about her magic made me wonder if I would be able to see her magic through our compow, like on the night of the adjunction. I had to try. I dug into my magical nucleus and angled myself from my magic to the compow (see, it rolls nicely of the tongue) right next to it. I traversed it which felt like hopping over clouds, you know they are not solid but they hold you up somehow none the less, and hit a red edge on the other side. Alright, this was where her magic began. Could I knock on it? I tried to stretch out a wavy magically energetic finger (so to say) and tapped lightly on the red barrier. It shimmered and vibrated like a tower bell after being struck. There was just no sound going with it. But I felt the vibration spreading outward and soon I could see Granger's entire magical field vibrating around her, like it was trying to shake her awake.

And then she came to.

.

**Hermione's POV:**

I woke up pressed against a warm body and it felt ever so comfortable. I felt a soft shirt and warm skin below under my head, heard a calm heart beat and smelled a familiar smell of leather and citrus and something else (something male, I came to realize) and I inhaled and delayed getting up for a second or two. Before realization hit me and I remembered the blast and I understood that it must mean that I was leaning against Draco Malfoy's chest because he had been there when the air exploded. I sat up quickly, avoided hitting his nose by sheer luck and scooted back from his upper body until I sat between his knees. I looked up in his grey eyes and saw relief and awe and curiosity and a little hurt.

"Malfoy," I exclaimed, not knowing what else to say. "What happened?"

His mouth formed into a thin line when he pressed his lips together. He pulled his knees up and folded his arms over his chest to close the passage between our bodies and said sourly: "You were knocked against the wall here from the blast and I think you hit your head. You wouldn't sit up straight and I had to hold you up and I just made myself more comfortable if I had to support you anyway. Plus I bet my chest was softer than a brick wall for your delicate bonehead."

I was shocked when I heard that he had tried to support and protect my unconscious body and likely injured head. Shocked and well, shocked. And being in shock doesn't lead to the best choice of words.

"This all wouldn't have happened if you hadn't attacked me," I snapped at him.

His eyes narrowed: "You know, a simple thank you would have sufficed," he snarled.

I fumed. "Thank you," I still snapped.

"You're welcome," he growled back.

"Hrmpf," I made.

"Hrm," he made back. But his tight mouth relaxed a bit. His mouth. His mouth was a fascinating sight because it looked soft for a man's mouth, even though he always pulled it into a sneer. My eyes kind of got stuck on it, like in trance, but my brain cells started processing again. I had been knocked out from the blast. I remembered the air waving back and forth between Malfoy and I and then the explosion. And after that grey, only grey, like grey cotton wool surrounding me. Then something tapped against me, deep inside and it rang like a church bell, only without sound.

"Like my mouth, Granger?" I heard his sniping voice.

"What did you do to wake me up?" I asked deep out of my thoughts. My eyes snapped up to his eyes, though. Grey. Oh, right. He looked amused but turned serious at my question.

"Remember that I freed myself from your Petrificus?"

I nodded. I had temporarily forgotten over the explosion but I would have remembered eventually that he had resolved a stunner where he should have not been able to.

"I, hrm, wanted to escape your poking. A Stunner is a magical confinement, so I focused on my magic to find a resolve and I stumbled over our combined magic right next to mine. When I moved over the border of the two it clicked and our compow, by the way, I've decided to call it compow, it's shorter than combined magic, anyway, our compow somehow interwove with your magic and resolved it and I could move again."

I was baffled. And there is no such thing as 'too-much-information' for me. "You decided to call it 'compow'? It intermingled with my magic and resolved my Petrificus?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "That was one heck of a petrification. Well, no wonder with our extra power. But the compow somehow broke down the elements of it and blew it in the wind. Like a potion resolving something. Your magic just went up in smoke."

I stopped short for a second. Did Malfoy just praise one of my spells? But I had more pressing matters.

"Did you say you just focused on the overlap of your magic and the combined magic?"

"Compow, yeah."

I snorted. "Compow, then. And then you saw the compow break apart my magic?"

He nodded satisfied: "Yes, but only the one that was on me, the one I wanted to get off. I'm fairly certain that it wouldn't, that it couldn't have done that with your entire magic."

I hmm'd. "But that still doesn't explain how you woke me."

He shook his head. "I was getting to that but you went off on a tangent." I scoffed. He grinned: "Wait for it, Granger. It's good." He paused again. I made an impatient movement with my hand. It was clear that he enjoyed letting me wait. He chortled.

"Alright, alright. When you were unconscious I thought about several things. I came from the shimmering air that we had been able to move to the fact that I had dug into my magic and resolved your spell with the help of the compow. So I wondered if I could see your magic on the other end of the compow. If there is a connection from my magic to the compow, there had to be a connection from your magic to the compow on the other side. So I went out to find it and saw a red barrier. I 'knocked' against it and that's when it rang like a church bell without sound. And then you woke up."

I stared at him. I always knew that Draco Malfoy liked to hear him talk and his long speech was proof of that. But I also knew that he was capable of more than spewing out insults. But how far he had gotten on his own made me speechless.

"Wow," was what I brought out finally. "Wow"

He snorted: "Is that all you can say? Wow?"

I licked my lips and pulled my lower lip in between my teeth. It always helped me think. Then I shook myself. "No, I can still say more. Can I try, too?"

He shrugged. "Go for it."

So I sat quietly and tried to tap my own magic inside. Under his scrutiny, I felt self-conscious. That didn't help. "Aehm, how do I do that?"

He shook his head again. "Granger, just try to look at your navel from the inside and see your magic. You even know your colour. The compow is right next to it."

So, I tried again. But he still looked at me expectantly.

"Aehm, could you maybe look somewhere else?"

"Are my ears deceiving me? Hermione Granger cannot do something with somebody watching? Does that happen often?" he smirked.

"It happens almost never but I can't focus with you watching. Look somewhere else, will you?"

He chuckled and covered his eyes with his hands. "I promise I won't peek."

I scoffed again. We both knew how much his promise was worth. But it helped that his glance didn't pierce me anymore. And then it was very easy, so easy that I wondered why I hadn't found it right away. I basically closed my eyes and looked inside me and my magic was right there, a shimmering red mass. And right next to it, as Malfoy had said, was the purple mass, the compow. It felt like it was inside me and outside me at the same time. I stretched across it and felt or saw (it's hard to say when you speak of perception of energy) a blue barrier, just as Malfoy had said. I reached for it and felt the contact when I got to it. I didn't have to 'knock'. Malfoy was right there and wide awake. I opted for stroking just to get the feel of it. And felt a stroke on my magic in return.

My eyes snapped open, only to look directly at Malfoy's greys. A lively grey, swirls of dark and lighter grey, looking expectantly at me.

"Found it this time?" he tried to ask nonchalantly. But his eyes betrayed the awe he must have been feeling.

"Yes," I beamed.

He smiled a true smile that lit up his face. It warmed me. "I did, too," he said.

I felt comfortable in that moment; sitting on the floor across from Draco Malfoy bathing in his true smile, exploring magical things. It was good to know that there was another human being who enjoyed discovering and not only handling magic as much as I did. It felt right. But I couldn't rest in it. I was still giddy about the newly discovered things.

"I want to try again," I exclaimed. Malfoy inclined his head as permissive gesture.

So I closed my eyes again and dug deep. I found my magic immediately. And the compow as well, no problem. I drifted over to Malfoy's blue energy, I heard him inhale at the contact, and went to explore. I 'stared' at the blue field, tried to see it as a whole. It didn't shape like a human body, more like a field with serrated edges but it had densities and holes in it. Malfoy's field was denser where I figured his head and his heart had to be (and another body part but we are not talking about that kind of magic here) and several holes. One hole was more remarkable than the other because it was marked by the total absence of blue. In the other holes I could still see the blue air shimmering, even with less intensity but in this particular hole, there was nothing. It was black, no light, no shimmer, matt black, nothing. When 'looking' at it (energy wise) I felt a draw, like it was pulling my energy in; like a black hole.

I thought back to the conversation we had regarding his Dark Mark. I had perceived it as cold, like it was drawing energy like ice does from a finger. Was this what it was, a black hole of magic?

"Draco, can you move your left arm, please?"

If he was surprised by the strange request, he didn't show it. I felt him (for real, this time) move his arm, waving it in the air. The hole didn't move.

"Alright, that's not how it works."

"What are you doing, Granger?" he demanded an explanation.

"I can 'see' a black hole in your magic and I wondered if it's the Dark Mark. But moving your arm doesn't make a difference. I'll try something else."

He grunted. I directed my magic over the hole. I reached out an energetic finger and poked the hole as Draco had done with his wand in the shimmering air. I felt a pull on my 'finger' and it got sucked in like from a vacuum cleaner. I squeaked in surprise because, although it was just a magical 'finger', I had felt the sucking and pulling and trying to devour it. And it was not in a kinky way.

"What, Granger?" came the slightly alarmed voice of Draco Malfoy. I opened my eyes to see his face looming in front of mine.

"It sucks magic." I whispered in shock.

He took on a puzzled-annoyed look. "What does?" he inquired impatiently.

"Your Mark. It sucks in magical energy."

"Like the barnabedoozle?"

I exhaled to calm myself. "Not like the barnabedoozle. According to Luna, the b-doozles change your magic, right? This hole, the mark devours it."

His eyes widened. "You mean the dirty bastard was sucking his loyal branded followers dry of their magic?" he exclaimed.

I massaged my temples and shook my head. "No, not quite like that. You cannot extract somebody's magical energy entirely, except if you end his or her life. You know that, Ariadne Lovegood said so in the book as well, remember? Extracting energy would be an addition or subtraction of magic, costs the life of the carrier and is therefore illegal. But drawing from available energy is not illegal. Not that Voldemort would have cared about the legality of his deeds. But as long as you live, your magic replenishes, because you draw from the energy surrounding us and transform it. And the Mark simply nourishes itself on you."

"Like a parasite?" Malfoy was still angry.

I nodded. "Like a parasite."

Malfoy snorted: "Figures.

I kept deliberating: "Remember how hot it felt for you and how cold for me when I touched the Dark Mark that one time while sitting over the books? It was drawing energy, now we know for sure. And remember the dent in your pictures? Like an absence of magic? It's the mark drawing it in. It's all making sense."

"Bloody hell. I've got a parasite on my arm. Now, I feel dirty." Malfoy sneered disgustedly and rubbed his arm furiously.

I smirked. "As dirty as I with my filthy mudblood?"

He stopped his movement and glanced at me aghast. "Is that how it feels?"

I sobered and said quietly. "Well, I don't really feel like I have dirty blood, so no to that question. But if you wonder if that is how it feels when somebody calls you dirty, I'd say yes, pretty much."

His shoulders sank and he let his arms drop. With his face set in a grimace he started with was surely becoming an apology: "Granger, …."

I put my hand on his arm and stopped him. I didn't want to hear his apology. "No, I don't want to hear it. Just never do it again and I don't need to hear your laboured apology."

He scrutinized me and then exhaled. "Alright, that's suits me well. As Malfoys don't apologize but you knew that already."

I made a face. "How could I forget? You remind me constantly."

He grinned. "Better safe than sorry."

I hrmphed.

"Back to the topic at hand: now that I've seen the magic sucking magic of your Dark Mark, I can specify it and we can put a pointer on it."

"You can put a point spell on a magic sucking thing?"

"Well," I replied, "it's dark, it's negative, we know what it does, it feeds of its carriers. Of course, we can put a point spell on it."

"Right," he smirked.

"Right," I grinned back. And at that moment, Harry came in. He saw Malfoy and me sitting on the floor facing each other, knees touching and grinning like idiots.

"Hey," he said, lightly piqued. "Malfoy, what are you doing with Hermione on the floor there? Take your hands of her." Malfoy's face fell and an annoyed look came into his eyes. I tried to calm him with a stern look and an almost non-existent shake of my head. "Stay calm," it said. "And don't say anything rash."

"Harry, he's not even touching me. We've been working and were just taking a break."

Harry still sent me suspicious glances. "You sure, Hermione?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, I'm sure, Harry. Or does it look like Draco has me under the Imperious and he makes me giggle on command?"

"Fat chance, Granger," Malfoy snorted. I shut him up with one of my death-threat glances but I could see his mouth bursting at the seams into a grin.

Harry was not quite convinced. I distracted him. "Was there something particular you wanted, Harry?"

He finally focused on me and left Malfoy alone. "It's almost lunch time and I wondered if you would go with me. It's been a while since we had lunch together."

I nodded. "Alright. Meet you at twelve at the Fountain?" I tried to make him go ahead.

He nodded back. "Okay, in a few, then."

I turned back to Malfoy, shouting out for Harry: "Be right behind you. I need just a few more words with my work partner."

Harry hesitated almost unperceptively. I knew Harry enough to know that he contemplated waiting for me. But then, he shrugged, turned and made his way out of the room.

I held my look on Malfoy's face. I could see in his eyes that he was torn between wanting to continue working right away and curiosity about Harry's reaction. I sighed.

"We have to continue in the afternoon." He nodded.

I still held my gaze on his face. What I was trying to see I wasn't sure.

"Why are you staring, Granger?" Malfoy snapped.

"Nothing," I grinned, repeating his phrase from early in the morning, from before everything blew up on us.

"Were you actually going to apologize for all the 'mudbloods' that you called me while we were at school?" I ventured carefully.

He glared at me. "I was going to express that it would certainly cause some displeasure to feel 'dirty' and the fact that somebody points it out to you, yes. I'm not sure if I was going to express my regrets of pointing it out to you in particular. I don't always have every sentence mapped out before I speak it. And we'll never know now because you interrupted me, rudely that is, from saying it."

I crossed my arms over my chest waiting for the rest. I knew he wasn't finished. And here it came.

He spoke through tight lips: "But if I would hazard a guess, I figure that I was going to express something along the lines of my hope that our future working together was not going to suffer from the stupidity of my past."

I had to grin. That was Draco Malfoy for you. Never able to come right out and say, I was wrong, I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Always blaming something or somebody else and if that was not possible, distancing himself from it, putting it in the past, pretending that it had nothing to do with the Draco Malfoy of today anymore. I heard him anyway and it made me smile.

He responded to my smile the only way he knew: "Don't delude yourself, thinking I have any feelings for you, Granger. You'd be dead wrong," he barked at me.

I shrugged, still grinning slyly: "Wouldn't dream of it."

But I could see by his eye roll that he didn't believe me either.

.

****

.

Harry didn't wait long when sitting over lunch with Hermione. As soon as they had ordered and the waiter had left, he came right out: "I was going to ask you, if everything with you and Ron was alright because I haven't seen you two for a long time outside of work but now I have a more pressing question."

Hermione looked at the coaster of her water glass. She knew what he was going to ask: "And what would that be?" she inquired anyway. Polite conversation rules and such.

"Is there something between you and Malfoy?" Harry burst out.

Hermione tried to stall. She didn't want to tell him of their adjunction yet when they were so close to actually finding out what to do with it. "You mean except work?"

"Yeah?"

She shook her head but still avoided to look in his eyes. "No. He's just an excellent co-worker."

"Excellent co-worker? In what way?" Harry asked suspiciously.

Hermione made a sweeping motion with her hand. "Oh, well, he's diligent, his mind is quick, he understands immediately what I mean when I start talking because he thinks the same thing. Our understanding and knowledge of all things magical is almost level, he has the advantage or having been raised in magic and I of having read everything about magic. And so, we complete each other."

Harry tried to be very careful with what he was going to say next. He did not want to confront his friend. "Hrm, Hermione. That's not a criticism or anything but … you are gushing."

"Hmm." Hermione looked far away.

"About Malfoy."

"Hmm."

Harry couldn't believe it: "Hello, the Malfoy, tormenter of our childhood years at Hogwarts, hater of muggleborns, Death Eater and son of Voldemort's right hand man?"

"Former Death Eater," Hermione said with a firm voice.

Harry gawped. "Hermione, are you defending him?"

Hermione blushed. "I'm just saying that I really like working with him. He brings a lot to the table; the work table, Harry," she interrupted him when Harry opened his mouth, "and we shouldn't forever hold it against him that his parents forced him into Voldemort's services."

"Forced him? Who was the one who called you mudblood for as long as we went to school?"

"Water down under the bridge, Harry. It's about how he is behaving now. He hasn't called me any insults since we've started working. He is his usual snappy self but he wants to help us, he is helping us, he wants to make up for his father's and yes, for his own mistakes," she finished with impetus on own mistakes. And Harry slammed his mouth shut because she said it. But he couldn't hold back saying: "You are defending him."

Hermione growled but didn't deny it. Instead she tried to divert from the fact: "Harry, weren't you the one who put Ron to rights because he didn't want to make up with Malfoy? Who said something about being sick of the hostilities between wizards and witches, independent of their camp and ancestry? I'm just putting to work what you said. And now you want to hold that against me? Hm?"

She glared at her best friend. Good thing, he couldn't see how her heart hammered against her rips. She was defending Draco Malfoy. But she wanted to keep working with him, now that they were so close to find out the function of their adjunction. So, she had to stall a little more until they could find out, perhaps even this afternoon, and rebuffing doubting Thomases was the best way.

Harry sighed and wiped a hand over his face. "I guess you are right, Hermione. I did say that and I meant it. I do want peace between the war parties. Just be careful, alright? I'm not entirely certain that he put aside all his supposedly former convictions."

'I am,' Hermione thought to herself. 'He's been over that for ages.'

"I promise, Harry," she said instead. "If he causes trouble, you'll be the first to know."

Harry nodded. "Okay, then. I trust you, Hermione. And I trust your judgement. Just be careful. I don't want to lose a friend, now that the war is over and after we've been through so much."

"Of course, Harry. I understand. I wouldn't want to lose me either," she joked.

Harry chuckled. "Lo and behold. A joke. Why Hermione, work is doing you a world of good."

'You have no idea,' Hermione thought while she was embracing her best friend.

They finished lunch as soon as they'd cleaned their meals away and went back to the ministry.

.

****

.

Draco Malfoy was already waiting for her when she came back to the exercise room. A cup of tea took considerably less time than a full lunch with a friend.

She knew they were lucky that the room was well equipped but basically abandoned by the ministry workers and aurors. And almost nobody ever disturbed them there, now that their photo taking was as good as over. The practice, the training on pointers they could do alone and just present the results.

Hermione tried to nonchalantly get around the topic of Harry barging in and snapping at Malfoy. He would want to know what Harry had said.

"Hello, Malfoy, how was your lunch?"

"Darjeeling Black. How was yours is the more important question, I think."

Hermione sighed. She knew so well how Malfoy would react.

"Harry just warned me not to trust you fully. He thinks you might be up to something."

Malfoy snorted and folded his arms over his chest: "Yes, Potter turns out to be quite paranoid with regards to my person."

Hermione looked at him sharply: "Can you blame him? Your time together was full of sharp insults and threats and your family was clearly on the other side of the war. There was always the black cloud of Voldemort over Harry's head; he didn't take well to people who made him feel even less well."

Draco Malfoy eyed his work partner. "So was our time together."

Hermione's gaze softened. "But I got to see a different Draco Malfoy. And I have parents who love me; I'm a bit more tolerant to antagonistic people coming my way."

Draco still held her gaze. "I wasn't that different to you."

Hermione looked back at him. "Not to me, that's correct. But you showed a different side of you in my presence. I saw your beliefs fail and crumble; your doubts." She could see his grey eyes shifting. She was certain that he set to say something a few times and then decided against it. In the end, he reached out one hand and grasped one of her looks hanging over her shoulder.

"I wonder why you never tried to tame or straighten your hair."

Hermione pulled up the sides of her mouth into a half-smile. "Because then it wouldn't be mine anymore. My father taught me to never change myself to the like of others. I live with my hair and so should others."

Draco Malfoy looked doubtful. "You don't think it's hideous?"

She shook her head. "No. It's soft, it smells nice, it keeps me warm in the winter. It's a part of me. It belongs to me. How can I think it's hideous? That would be like thinking my magic was hideous because I could do terrible things with it. And I never have to deal with my hair not having enough volume, something that drives other girls insane. "

Draco had followed her speech looking at her mouth. When she had finished, he made contact with her eyes and looked down at the lock between his fingers again. "How indeed?" was all he said, though, before he let go off it. He turned away and schooled his face to focus on the work at hand. "Alright, back to the basics. To find out what the compow can do, we have to go through everything we know from the book and that …."

"You know, these are all suppositions from the book, we don't even know how they researched or evidenced it. They may be totally wrong," Hermione groaned, interrupting.

Malfoy calmed her: "But we may as well take it as suggestions and try to find evidence for or against it. There is no use to doubt what we supposedly know now, and to start from scratch."

She sighed: "Right"

He grinned: "Right"

"Alright," he took up again. "We know, supposedly," he curtailed to account for Hermione's objection, "that the compow is a new entity of energy, created from the adjunction, purple in colour because combined. It is very likely that the quadrupling of power is correct, right?

Hermione agreed: "Right."

Draco continued: "Therefore, many of the other suppositions are likely true, right?

"Right," Hermione admitted.

"The connection to the carriers?"

Hermione agreed: "Right, we know that, we've 'seen' it." She motioned quotation marks.

Draco continued listing: "Seeing and directing magical waves?"

Hermione nodded: "Check."

"The independence of power?"

Hermione made a face: "We don't know yet. Same as what power it could possibly have created dependent on our 'kind of magic'." She made quotation marks again.

Draco puckered his lips in thought: "But it could be true. And we'll figure that out eventually. Okay, next. What's next?"

Hermione frowned. "Can we go back to the adjunction? Something just occurred to me. An adjunction only takes place because the carriers have equal magical strength, right?"

Draco nodded, glad that she started to think for herself again. You could never know what incredible insights came out of her brain once it started working properly.

Hermione continued: "We don't know what triggered the adjunction but shouldn't having equal magical strength have an effect as such? Didn't Dumbledore say that magic flows from the stronger to the weaker and when it's equal it clashes?"

Draco conceded: "I believe so."

Hermione waved her hands: "But the book said that the entity tries to stay together as a whole because it is artificial and only fully functional when whole. So where does the clashing come in?"

Draco Malfoy made a face as if to say, do I really have to spell it out: "Don't we aggravate each other enough to count as 'clashing'?"

Hermione looked smug: "Okay, then where is the relief after separation?"

But Draco didn't give up as easily. He recounted facts. "I told you how good it felt when you came into the Drawing room of the Manor. We'd been separated for months. And the feeling of you missing in the school, especially in your niche."

Hermione frowned again. A sharp line went down her forehead, as it always did when something didn't agree with her: "Hm, but it can't be both, can it? We are either equal and clash or we feel better when together, it can't be both."

Draco looked fascinated at the deep frown line in her otherwise smooth face: "Why not? Perhaps sometimes one is stronger than the other?"

Hermione bit her lower lip: "You mean when we are together a lot, we clash and when we are separated for a long time we feel relief when reunited?"

Draco stared at the way she tormented her lip: "Why not?"

Granger didn't buy the whole package yet: "It's possible. But why didn't I feel the relief after the separation?"

Draco eyed her frown line again and said the first thing that came to mind: "Maybe you were too anxious to notice? After all, you had just been snatched and had to hide the fact that they actually caught the real Harry Potter? And while you were on the run, did you feel strange emotions during the separation?" He had always wanted to know that.

Hermione became very quiet: "I felt strong emotions of despair and terror but they had plausible causes."

Draco Malfoy was dying of curiosity but for his regular snarkiness: "Really, Granger, why was that?"

She shook her head: "You don't want to know."

He insisted: "But I do want to know."

She raised her head: "Maybe I don't want to tell."

Draco made his typical Malfoy sneer: "Don't want to tell or don't want to tell me?"

Hermione shook her head: "Don't want to tell. Not right now. Maybe one day. It has nothing to do with you."

Draco was only half convinced: "You're sure about that?"

She heard his need for assurance. Her warm brown eyes captured his cool grey ones: "Yes. Yes, I'm sure."

He nodded with a frown. "Alright."

Silence lasted for about two minutes.

"I did feel despair and terror at inappropriate times. That must have been your terror and despair," Draco Malfoy admitted quietly.

Hermione lowered her head: "Sorry"

Malfoy sneered: "Aw, Granger, come on, you cannot apologize for despair that you felt just because somebody else caught it."

Hermione looked defiant: "Yes, I can."

He shook his head: "No, you can't. I won't allow it."

She looked annoyed: "Oh, you won't allow it. And what are you going to do against it?"

He narrowed his eyes to sly slits: "I'll just forbid it."

Hermione was stunned for his brazenness: "You'll just forbid it?"

He nodded. "Yep."

She huffed, then scoffed, then snorted, then chuckled, and finally full out laughed. He looked at her the whole time frowning and didn't move his face at all. After she calmed a bit he asked: "Feel good, Granger?"

Hermione wheezed: "Yes, apart from a bit of belly ache from laughing too hard, I feel pretty good."

He clarified: "No despair at all?"

"None at all, why?"

A little smug he said: "I just wanted to see if you follow my orders."

Hermione frowned: "That was supposed to be the effect of you forbidding it?"

Malfoy nodded his head once: "Yep."

She grinned: "Well, I have to give it to you, it worked."

One nod again: "Yep."

She chuckled once more. He joined in grinning from ear to ear. It was a delightful sight, she thought.

"But aside from finding out more about the adjunction and the compow, we still need to figure out how to put a pointer spell on a Dark Mark," he reminded her of the work they had to interrupt because of lunch. She sighed and nodded.

"Okay, but I have another question: What about the waves that we saw this morning?"

Draco looked exasperated: "The book said that the carriers would be able to see the magic moving with practice."

Hermione frowned: "Why can't I see them now?"

He sighed: "Try using them." After a brief pause he continued: "I felt that. You were tapping my navel."

Hermione grinned: "Yes. Okay, we can use them even without seeing them. How can we see them again?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes: "Granger, what's with all the questions? If I know the answer, then so do you. How do you think we can see them again?"

Hermione puckered her lips: "By tapping on the magical boundary?"

"I would start with concentrating on it but that would work at the very least and if everything else fails, yes. Now, can we get back to my parasite and its only use, the location of other Death Eaters?"

Hermione grinned: "Your parasite, yes, Sir. I…"

Draco looked stately down his nose at her: "Good girl," he interrupted, praising her address of him. "Do you want to try a pointer or shall I?"

"I'll do it," she said eagerly and readied herself to dive into her magic again.

But it was easier said than done.

She dug in again, like she had done in the morning, passing through her magic, crossing over to the compow and flowing over it. It became easier each time she did it. When she reached the border to Draco's blue magical energy she stopped and eyed the sucking hole from afar. She focused on it to capture its energetic pattern but it was difficult. It sucked in whatever she sent at it to capture its matrix. The negativity of it didn't match anything she could attach a 'point me' spell to and so she retreated and resurfaced.

Draco waited impatiently. "Well, Granger?"

Hermione shook her head annoyed: "I couldn't. Its pattern is negative, I can't match it to a point spell."

He frowned. "Did you activate the compow?"

Hermione was taken aback: "What? How?"

"I told you how it helped me to resolve your Petrificus. It'll help you capture the pattern. Go for it."

Hermione looked uncertain: "How do I do that?"

Draco was still impatient: "Just glide over the border between your magic and the compow and it'll click. If not, come back up and I'll try."

"Alright," she said and down she went again.

This time when she went over the compow she tried to drag it with her to the blue boundary. With it in tow, she focused on the Mark and the compow immersed with her magical foray and the magical structure of the Mark rose up and merged and fermented in her magical matrix.

But that wasn't the end of it. When, mission accomplished, she tried to turn back she felt his company. His magic moved up to hers and touched. She turned back and let his magic align with hers. And for the first time they could see directly what the photos had already showed them: that where the hole of the Dark Mark was in Draco's magical energy, in Hermione's there was a consolidation of energy. The way their magical fields were aligned as they were in that moment, these two points corresponded. Watching together, how their two magical energies balanced themselves out, her consolidation to his absence, they witnessed how the compow righted the balance of things again and squeezed itself between their fields, putting them on opposite ends again. Before they were magically pushed apart, however, they were able to recognize that the compow had no marks whatsoever at the exact same spot. There was a tiny swirl and some vibrations where the mark would have been but other than that it was smooth as a glass surface.

Hermione resurfaced to see Draco already waiting. She took a deep breath.

"I…"

"What, Granger? Did you get it this time?"

"I got it alright. But what were you doing there?"

"It clicked and all?"

"It didn't click but it merged with mine and I recognized the pattern I needed. But then you were there and aligned your magic with mine."

He nodded. "I had to see for myself. I knew I wouldn't be able to take the pattern of my own magic but I had to see how you did it. Did you see how my Dark Mark hole matched exactly your consolidation?"  
>Hermione snorted impatiently: "Of course I did. But did you notice how the compow squeezed between us to push us apart again?"<p>

Draco frowned. "Yes. What was that all about? I don't like being pushed away."

Hermione frowned likewise but her frown line indicated her hard thinking. "I think it has to do with the balance of things. Show me your mark, please."

Draco rolled up his sleeve to check his mark. It looked like it had always looked. Hermione stretched out a hand to touch it. When her fingers touched his skin, they were both prepared for electrical shocks or freezing cold fingers or fireplace hot skin. But nothing happened. Hermione put her whole hand on his arm over the mark and still nothing. Their eyes made contact and the bewilderment was clear in both sets.

Draco exclaimed: "Granger, what did you do?"

Hermione answered a little disconcerted: "Nothing, I did nothing, the compow did."

He mused. "Granger, think back to the photos and the dent in my magic in them. We know for sure now that it was the Dark Mark. And what about the fact that there is no dent in the compow and that you have a consolidation in the same place and how our energies align? And how I received a shock the first time you touched it?"

Hermione questioned: "And now it's nothing?"

Draco confirmed: "Yes. Now it's nothing."

She said incredulous: "Our combined magic seems to balance it out."

He said equally incredulous: "The compow neutralizes the mark."

"So, it seems."

Draco swore: "Fuck"

Hermione was piqued: "Beg pardon?"

Draco was furious: "I said fuck."

She replied snappishly: "And why would you say that?"

Draco growled: "Because the Dark Mark was the best marker we had, to put a pointer on and follow the other bastards who were branded just like me. And now it's neutralized and entirely useless."

Hermione looked sternly at him. She resembled Professor McGonagall quite a bit this way. Just the glasses were missing. "We don't know that yet. It may be something the compow is able to do but we haven't done anything yet. Isn't it good to know that we can possibly neutralize your magic sucking parasite? Weren't you the one complaining that you felt dirty with that parasite on your arm just this morning? And I caught the pattern beforehand and the matrix of the pattern is still usable."

Draco was stumped: "You still have the pattern?"

Hermione growled at him: "Yes."

Draco had difficulties to hide his excitement: "Golly, Granger, why didn't you say so before?"

Hermione still snarled: "I'm fairly sure I did but you went all moody on me."

Malfoy snarled back. "Malfoys don't go moody."

She ignored that last phrase and focused her pointer on the pattern that her magic had saved. The arrow of the spell pointed right on Draco's arm.

Hermione looked smug at her companion: "See, pointer works, you've been marked. All good now?"

Draco couldn't keep his displeasure inside, it came through in a deep frown. On one hand, his mark was the best thing they had to chase other Death Eaters. But for a second there, although he swore, he had believed that he was free of the smudge of his past and after the first shock, he had been hopeful that eventually he would be able to purge himself of this relic of his dirty past.

He tried to distract from it: "A map. Get a map. Let it point on a map."

"Alright," Hermione cried before she stormed out of the room.

Five minutes later, she was back with Harry and a map. She renewed the spell and the arrow pointed to Azkaban.

They all sighed in disappointment. "Well, yes, there would be quite a few," Harry said. "Alright, where else?"

Hermione mused: "Malfoy, can you give us a name to go with the Mark?"

Draco furrowed his forehead in thought: "Ehm, Gibbons?" From the night on the astronomy tower, the Carrows they had caught, Greyback was taken care of since the final battle but Gibbons was still at large.

The arrow switched to an unsuspecting town in Derbyshire (_A/N avid Austen reader, couldn't resist Mr Darcy). _An additional spell gave them an address. Harry became all business and gave instructions.

"Alright, you two stay here. I'll gather our operational teams and we'll check out this house. We'll send a message as soon as we can."

Hermione, overwhelmed from their expeditions and discoveries of the day, easily gave in: "Alright, Harry."

After Harry left in a hurry, she and Malfoy went up to their office to have a place to sit down, have a cup of tea and wait. They'd been in the exercise room all day.

Malfoy was again unusually disquieted. "You think it's going to work?" he queried.

Hermione, lost in thoughts, replied briefly: "I hope so."

He wasn't satisfied. "What if it doesn't work?"

She sighed, not wanting to think about more work at the moment: "Then we'll start all over again."

But Draco wasn't as easily pacified: "What do you think made it different this time, why didn't it work before like this?"

Hermione groaned: "I don't know, Draco. Think about it systematically. When did we do our first trials of pointers?"

Draco completed the thought: "Before we found out about our compow. You focused your pointer on my disarming spell. But since we were both in the room, it's possible that the compow overlapped our individual magic and the pointer indicated the compow part in me and mine likewise in you."

Hermione continued tiredly: "Harry couldn't have done the same spell because he doesn't have access to the compow. We looked at the Mark this time and took the exact magical pattern of it. And in the compow, there is no mark, so this time, I believe we captured the right thing with our pointer. Do you think?"

Draco stared blankly at the wall: "Yes, I think so, too." Then he hid his face between his hands, the tension evident in his posture: "Golly."

And then they sat in silence, exhausted, sipping tea and waiting for the things to come.

.

Harry came back an hour later, smudged with dirt and exhausted. Hermione and Draco jumped from their seats in anticipation.

"Well, Potter?"

Harry fell on the nearest chair and burrowed his hands in his hair. "He escaped. But he was there, alright."

Draco and Hermione slapped each other's hand in a "Yes, well done" movement.

Their eyes connected when they realized that not only had they touched each other willingly but for a mutual achievement. They shifted half a step apart and focused back on the saviour of the world in front of them.

Hermione volunteered to ask the obvious question: "What do you mean, he escaped?"

Harry groaned. "Seamus tripped one of his border wards. He was gone through a trapdoor and disapparated on the other end of it before we got to the house. But I identified the personal items in the house. It was Gibbons, alright. Until next time, you bugger," he swore under his breath. Then he looked up at his best friend and her work companion, bent tensely over him.

"But it worked. Whatever magic you two accomplished, it worked. And we'll keep going until we have all those wankers rounded up and locked away, right?"

"Right" came the answer from two voices.  
>"Right," Harry Potter confirmed. He was set on his path to lock all Death Eaters away, to avenge his parents and all their companions who had to die for the madman and his followers. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't see the beaming victorious smiles exchanged by the two people in front of him who were more than pleased with themselves.<p>

.

.

_A/N With hindsight, I realize the magic waving and imprint taking sounds a bit like Neo and the Matrix but this is how I imagine it. If you can see magic/energy (auras), you __will__ see them. There is no turning back once you started seeing them, once you opened your channels/sight to them. Your brain gets used to perceiving them and it cannot turn that off again. So Draco and Hermione are free to move in it as they please. _

_I invented the "compow" because I really became sick and tired of writing it each and every time. How often can you write "combined power or magic or energy" before going mad? I am quite grateful to Draco Malfoy for finding such a nice acronym._


	16. Gwenny

_A/N: Alright, for the US readers over there, I know it's your thanksgiving weekend, so Happy Thanksgiving and I'll give you something to do on a long Sunday night. Here's the next part._

_Mrs Moony (I'm sorry I have to misspell your name, it won't come through otherwise), I understood you, thank you. I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that they are not being forced to do anything. So, we are getting warmer in this chapter._

_As always, if you'd all be so kind, let me know what you think. Putting me on your favourite list is nice and on story alert is one way of adulation but I'd prefer a review telling me what you like the most about a chapter. Give it a sentence, come on, you can do it. Be like Hermione, come on. _

_ Enjoy_

_M_

**.**

**Chapter 14 (3): Gwenny**

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****

**Draco's POV:**

When I got home that night, I had just about time enough to refresh myself before dinner was being served. I had no idea how the house-elves timed it the way they did; like they had a radar of when I would be coming home. Which is what the probably did.

Dinner itself was a quiet affair. I did answer my mother's question regarding my day but I was too wrapped up in thought about the recent tide of events to go into details about it. When she had enough of my monosyllabic remarks, she put her foot down.

"Draco, dear, you said, your day was fine. Will you tell me what you did exactly?"

"You wouldn't understand," I feebly tried to deflect her. And when I criticise my own performance, you just know that it wasn't successful.

My mother narrowed her eyes. "I am a witch myself, you know."

I sighed. "I know, mother. I didn't mean that you wouldn't understand the mechanics. But the background of it is very complex and difficult to explain," I tried to stall.

But Narcissa Malfoy did not easily take denial. "Try me," she challenged.

I sighed again. There was no sense in refusing my mother. So I told her what I could about my work with Granger, shirting as usual the parts where it came too close to the adjunction. I was becoming thoroughly sick of hiding the fact that I was magically matched to Granger. I was going to give it a few more days for the newest discoveries to unfold, and then I would tell my mother.

.

**Narcissa Malfoy's POV:**

People always think that I am a cold-hearted typical Slytherin woman, set on my personal success, raised in pureblooded traditions to be a trophy wife to the Malfoy dynasty and nothing else. But I am a mother as well and the well-being of my child comes before everything else. Looking at my son's mien I could see that something was occupying him beyond normalcy. Slytherins and the Malfoys in particular had been well schooled in managing their facial and bodily expressions for centuries to the point of masking it entirely. But I had observed my son's expressions for 18 years; I knew him well. I knew that there were emotions under his face mask that were bubbling to come up. And of course, I knew that he didn't tell me the entire story when he reported the events of his work day.

It had been the same way when the Dark Lord had threatened him. He had so carefully tried to hide behind the excitement to be able to do something to make up for the shame of his father, who had been his idol all his life, despite the less than loving relationship they had. But I had seen the shock of the cost of failure in his eyes and the pain he had to endure for the 'pleasure' of being allowed to do something for the monster almost broke my heart. If it could have saved his mind and soul, I would have willingly gone right at that point, to not make him endure the following year.

In the end, I believe something happened during that year that gave him strength and made him grow into a young man. He was able to safe his soul and manipulate his way out of the mess afterward. I didn't believe for a second that he didn't recognise Potter and his friends when they were brought into the Manor. Fortunately, I am a skilled Occlumens myself, Severus was a more than able teacher, rest his soul. And I had likewise little incentive to betray the possibly only saviours that we would have; especially considering the fact that my son wouldn't do it. I knew he must have had a reason.

I had been brought up to believe that Lord Voldemort was the epitome of pureblooded thinking and therefore to follow his teachings. That is not an excuse, but all my life it had been so much easier to just follow what I knew my family around me believed. But when he threatened my sixteen year-old son with taking my life should he fail in his task, he lost all credibility in my eyes. What man would menace a child with the fear, with the responsibility for the life of his mother? Not a hu-man, for certain. I realized that we had been following a monster for decades and even though I had to uphold that we still believed in his cause (it was prudent for the safety of my family), I felt sick to my stomach from that day on whenever I had to carry out one of his whims.

When I had another chance therefore, to aid Harry Potter in his quest to defeat the monster, I had jumped on it without a second thought. All I had been able to think in that second, was how I could find my Draco alive again, to unite my family, to save us all from the abominable creature that had re-created itself and was no longer human.

The realisation of a monster, a halfblood, teaching us our pureblood ways had softened my regards of our traditional pureblood ways. Humanity had become very important to me after the final battle and I would do what I could to try and make everybody forget the atrocities that had been done in the name of the monster, for example to my remaining sister. Likewise, when I looked at my now fully grown eighteen year-old son towering over me who would have to carry on with the Malfoy empire on his own one day, his happiness in those approaching days was more important to me than the fact that he continued a pureblooded dynasty right away in a perhaps respectful but most likely loveless marriage. It did not mean I didn't want him to marry a pureblood and continue our traditional ways. That was my most important duty as a Malfoy wife: to give an heir and insure that he made the right choices to continue the Malfoy legacy. But the emotional damages the monster had inflicted needed time to heal and as a mother, I would award my son this time.

He had time, I thought. He didn't need to marry at nineteen. Lucius' request for him to marry quickly was unreasonable, I decided. He could try out a few witches who would not exactly be marriage material if he so liked. There was nothing wrong with having a few dalliances. He was a young man, he'd had a hard time during the war, and he deserved some respite. Maybe it turned out to be actually beneficial for the Malfoy reputation if Draco was seen with Potter and his associates. It would certainly take the pressure of us.

I had meant what I had told him these few weeks ago, that he was free to choose whichever witch he liked, pureblooded or not. But I had said that mostly not to make him desperate and consequently unhappy, or rebellious. I knew if you wanted a young man to do something, there's no better way than telling him he couldn't do it. So, if I had told him, he couldn't date Ms Granger, for example, he would have gone straight to it. If I knew my son, and I did, then a witch, who was equally powerful as he, who could and would challenge his intellect and magical prowess, was much more tempting to him than a whimpering manipulating pureblooded damsel. I could see that Draco didn't like to be manipulated. My son was a Slytherin through and through and he was able to manipulate with the best of them. But he abhorred the feeling of being manipulated or put under pressure. My husband's fault and my neglect to intervene, I believe. The dignity of a child hadn't been much of worth to him. And so I wanted to take some pressure of him.

He didn't need to decide therefore, which witch to marry right away. If he wanted to sow his wild oats with Ms Granger who had a powerful magical disposition and intellect that had yet to find its match, to get it out of his system, I would understand and give him leave to do so. We, that is to say, I would deal with the outfall of this. We had been in a war, after all, people didn't adhere to their normal routines after a war, didn't they? That's right, not necessarily. I was fairly confident that her stubbornness, know-it-all tendency and muggleborn pedigree would bring him back to his senses eventually. I trusted my son to remember his place. He would realize that there were women out there who were better suited to him, and then, he would be free to choose a proper wife. And then, we would find a wife who could give him all that life has to offer and he would become a respectable Malfoy yet again. I just hoped that fate was on our side and we weren't fighting an uphill battle.

I wasn't giving up on the hope for grandchildren just yet.

.

_(A/N I think Narcissa is smarter than we give her credit for, don't you think? Ah, the insight of a mother. Although, I don't think that she quite has Draco's number yet. Maybe a few digits. But we'll see. ;-))))_

.

**Hermione's POV:**

When I sat with Ginny, Angelina and Katie that night over drinks in Katie's apartment my mind was still full of the events of the day. Our triumph over the fact that our pointer had worked and the firmness and warmth and smell of Draco's body was very much impressed on me. Since the three other women in Katie's cosy living room were mostly discussing Quidditch, a topic they knew I didn't share, it didn't really matter that I was only halfway there.

They gained my attention though when they started talking about our school teams and I overheard Malfoy's name. I believe Ginny said something about the "slimy git", Ron's favourite expression for Draco Malfoy. But Angelina and Katie held against it.

"Oh, come on, Ginny. You have to admit that Malfoy was good as a seeker," Katie said along with Angelina's sound of protest.

"But Harry always beat him." Ginny stubbornly insisted.

Angelina calmly intervened: "That's because Harry was a better seeker. And a natural flyer. That doesn't mean that Malfoy wasn't any good at all. He had great flying skills, from what I could see."

"But his father bought him his place on the team with the brooms for the entire team," I put in between.

Katie eyed me thoughtfully. "I think that must have hurt him big time when you said that. It would have hurt me, and I'm a girl. Even if it was true, in the end he deserved the place on the team. I don't think Slytherin had a better seeker in quite a while."

I hrmph'd. "But they had the cup for a long time before Harry came along."

Angelina agreed: "Yeah, the Gryffindor team wasn't playing well together before Harry came along. Even with Charlie Weasley, who was the captain, we didn't have a coordinated game to hold against the Slytherin's, well, Flint's recklessness. Charlie let everybody play their positions and he was an excellent seeker but he didn't coordinate the players' efforts well. Until Oliver became Captain, we didn't really have a game strategy. We took the mickey out of him and his charts, but with hindsight I have to say, he did the right thing. Remember, I was captain for a year before I graduated. And I can tell you, it's freaking hard to coordinate a game plan. So, every game we actually won before Oliver was something like a miracle. But when Charlie left, we were missing a good seeker, well, any seeker actually. We had several reserve players who played as seeker but none of them had the actual skills necessary. Not like Ginny here, who can actually play both chaser and seeker. And then we got an excellent seeker when Harry came along. And an excellent coach in Oliver. And it showed," she finished proudly.

And Katie added again: "But that doesn't mean that Malfoy wasn't a good player. I always felt that it was simply a rivalry between Harry and Malfoy. I never had a problem with him."

"You're a pureblood and not a blood traitor," I mumbled dejectedly. Ginny nodded her assent.

Both Katie and Angelina stared at me. "I'm surprised, Hermione. Aren't you the one working with him?" Katie questioned.

I nodded. "And isn't he civil to you and all?" Angelina questioned with narrowed eyes.

I nodded again. "Then why are you trying to find fault with him?" she continued. Katie nodded this time.

"I'm not," I protested.

Ginny piped in: "He has been nothing but a slimy git to us in school. That's not easily forgotten."

Angelina and Katie both observed us with narrowed eyes: "And have you been nice to him?" Katie asked.

"Why should we have been nice to somebody who insulted us at every turn?" I said indignantly.

"I see." Katie leaned back in her chair. "And who started it?"

Ginny and I looked at each other and tried to think back how it all had started. Finally, Ginny shrugged: "Don't look at me. I wasn't there your first year."

"And I wasn't friends with Harry and Ron at the beginning of the first year. When I became friends with them, they already insulted each other. Malfoy likely attacked me because their hostility was already established and I was with them," I realized.

Angelina nodded sagely.

"Well, and he did try very hard to get Harry expelled in the first year. And even though that's between Harry and him, by extension, it became a thing between him and all of us."

Ginny nodded.

"But, Ginny, there was an established enmity between your family and the Malfoys, long before Harry and I came along. Isn't that where it started?" I reminisced.

Ginny snarled: "It couldn't possible have to do with the fact that Lucius Malfoy clearly, openly belonged to Voldemort's entourage? That he had been prosecuted for crimes committed in his name the first time Voldemort was around? With the death of my aunts and uncles at the hand of the followers? Even if he was never sentenced because they all claimed to having been imperiused, he clearly still supported Voldemort. "

I was aghast. "Be that as it may, did we punish the son for the sins of his father, then?"

"Perhaps. But they proved quickly that we were right in our suspicion of them belonging to Voldemort's most inner circle and that they jumped right back on the bandwagon as soon as Voldemort resurfaced, didn't they?" Ginny said snappishly.

I stared at her. "Ginny, that's true but it doesn't really have anything to do with Draco. Harry actually said that he had offered him the hand of friendship on the train ride our first day of Hogwarts. Did he ever tell you that?"

Ginny swayed her head from side to side. "I believe he mentioned it the day Malfoy came to you after his trials, offering his service. But he also said, when Malfoy offered, he couldn't have taken his hand because Draco had offended Ron right before. And imagine Harry becoming friends with Malfoy and then finding out that his family reveres Voldemort who killed his parents and tried to kill him as a baby? That would have gone down well, don't you think? It would have just given a wrong impression of allegiance if he had taken Malfoy's hand that day. And Draco Malfoy's no innocent sheep. Remember what he called you for six years. And let's not forget that he tried to kill Dumbledore and almost killed Katie and Ron and had her imperioused."

Katie winced but said: "That was an accident. A dangerous one, yes, but he didn't intend to kill me really, or I would be the first to condemn him."

"And the Imperious?"

Katie waved her hand. "Means to an end."

Bless Katie and her forgivenss.

"Yes," I mumbled. "And he tried to kill Dumbledore but he didn't do it. What would you do if Voldemort held your mum?"

Ginny pulled a face: "Hermione…," she started but didn't finish whatever she was going to say. Nobody wanted to think about the situation from their own perspective.

"More wine anybody?" Angelina threw in, holding up the bottle, trying to get the thoughts in a different direction. We all nodded and raised our glasses to her.

A few hours later, I was home and in my bed but my thoughts hadn't stopped in the least. It had been good to see that people who were not exactly our peers from school but a few years older, had a different view of Draco Malfoy; that they could actually look at him and see some of his qualities and not only his faults, disregarding of his background.

I made me even more torn about the situation, though. I had seen parts of him that convinced me that there was a lot more to Draco Malfoy than the slimy git we always saw in him. But with regards to our history, I had been equally guilty of jumping to conclusions regarding his intentions as Harry and Ron.

I told myself to be more on the lookout for quality signs in Draco Malfoy. Starting tomorrow. If only he wasn't Draco Malfoy. Why did he have to make it so difficult?

And then before drifting off into sleep, my thoughts went back to the nice feeling of his solid chest muscles behind my back, the warmth on my lower back and his smell and his arms around me when he held my hand in his and his legs around me, caging me in as support, his energy stroke on my magic and the look of disappointment on his face when he realized that his Dark Mark was still intact.

Feeling warm and secure, I slipped deeper under my cosy blanket and sank into oblivion.

.

****

.

When Malfoy and Hermione came in the next morning, Harry was already waiting for them impatiently, pacing back and forth between the desks in their common office. He came to the point almost without saying hello.

"What's up, Harry?" Hermione released Harry's tension.

"Whatever you two did yesterday, even though the guy escaped, worked. So, we have to do more of that. Can you find more Death Eaters with your pointer?"

She glanced at Draco who shrugged and nodded. She turned to Harry and nodded as well. "Alright, let's get the map."

As soon as they had the map spread out before them, she said the incantation "_Point mordre sigilium_". The arrow appeared and pointed to Draco. He sighed. "That's becoming old very fast."

"_Proxi_" Hermione ordered. The arrow moved again to Azkaban and with the next 'proxi' to a small town in Wales.

With an "_Identicus Persona" _a little sign came up next to the arrow, saying "Lothor Reddawl".

Malfoy groaned. Upon the questioning look from Granger and Potter, he explained: "Lothor Reddawl had the nickname "the garbage man" because he usually tidied up after the done deed."

"Ah," Harry said with a grim smile. "A strongman." He pushed himself back from the table. "Alright, I'll gather the operational teams and we'll go check it out."

Hermione and Draco exchanged a glance and nodded at each other.

"We're coming with you." Hermione said to Harry.

He grimaced. "Hermione, …"

Draco pushed after: "We've been clogged up in here far too long, Potter. We need to get out, get some fresh air, see the landscape. Wales is supposed to be quite nice."

"We're not going to Wales for a seaside vacation, Malfoy," Harry barked.

Malfoy sneered: "I know that, Potter. And I'm not asking, I'm telling you that we will be part of your operational teams today." He had moved next to Hermione and put a hand on her back. Hermione nodded to Harry.

When Harry looked at his best friend in that moment he saw a young man next to her who seemed to belong. It was unreal, it must have been a trick of the morning light shining in, because the young man in question with his white blond hair and light grey eyes and pale skin was the exact opposite of his friend; Draco Malfoy who had opposed and despised them since they had first met couldn't be right by Hermione Granger. But they looked united standing next to each other; like there was a light that bathed them both in its glow. His hand on her back was protective, possessive, connecting, natural where it was. Of course, he had seen her next to Ron because that's where she was supposed to be. But Ron never looked this natural. He was always lanky and awkward but Harry was so used to his two best friends standing next to each other looking at him that he didn't pay it any special attention.

Draco Malfoy as he stood there looked "right" at her side. That just couldn't be. Harry shook his head to clear it and then on Malfoy's arm connecting him to Hermione until Malfoy noticed his stare and pulled his arm back.

"Hermione?"

She glared and pointed a finger at him. "We are going with you, Harry."

Harry's head sagged. "On my chest?"

"Down the barrel," Hermione smiled grimly. She held her hand up, the index stretched out and the thumb lifted up. Then she made "boom" and lifted her hand a bit and blew on the tip of her finger. Harry sagged even further down. Draco had absolutely no idea what she was doing but since Potter reacted like she had threatened him with an Avada Kedavra he assumed it was a muggle-ism.

"Well, if we are done with the pleasantries, perhaps we could go and arrest a Death Eater or two?" he snarled.

Potter and Granger looked at him as if he had disturbed a private exchange. He felt his throat constrict, but then Granger beamed at him and said: "Yes, let's."

.

After few preparations, they were trudging through fields and hedgerows towards a desolate hut hidden in a tree stand. The advantage of a hidden hut was that, although you couldn't see it until you stood right in front of it, you couldn't be seen approaching it either. Wizards relied entirely on their ward system. Draco felt the wards singing as they came closer to the hut.

"Stop," he whispered urgently. Everybody stopped in their tracks at once. They might not always have agreed with him but when you are out in the field fighting you follow the orders of one of your own group. You can discuss whether it was right or wrong later.

He answered the questioning eyebrows with a short "The wards." Potter nodded.

"I don't see anything," Ron mocked.

Draco snorted. "That's because they are dark magic. They are not meant to be seen. They would be quite useless if you could see and dismantle them easily, wouldn't they?"

Draco paused, feeling his way forward with his magic, testing for the best approach to the wards. Hermione, watching him, felt his groping in the magical maze of wards, stretching out toward the foreign magic and joined her magic to his.

Ron continued to beard the other members of his team, mumbling under his breath: "Who made him the expert on wards, I thought that was your area of expertise or at least Hermione's." Until Harry, quietly observing Malfoy at work, hissed at him to shut it.

He couldn't have seen Hermione's own efforts. Through her magic's movement, the compow mingled in with their two separate magical energies, interweaved her magic with his and suddenly the pattern of the ward laid open for them. The compow laid over it like a puzzle piece and dissolved it without raising the alarm.

"Anything happening, Malfoy? Perhaps today?" Ron whined.

"Be my guest of running into this one. Not only will the man inside escape you again but it will have you in shreds before your friends can even say "peep", Malfoy rebuffed him quietly. "One weasel down."

"It's done," Hermione answered, to prevent a furious answer from Ron. "The wards are down."

"But you haven't even done anything," Ron overheard the reproach. Harry narrowed his eyes suspiciously at them.

"Nothing that you could have seen, Ron, that's right. There is more to magic than waving a wand, you should know," Hermione rebutted him.

She and Draco exchanged a glance and quickly looked straight ahead to the hut in the distance. Harry had seen the quick exchange but filed his concerns to bring it up later. "Let's get the guy in the house and bring him in, Ron. Everything else can wait until later."

Only, it wasn't as easy as four on one, bringing a guy in. When they had almost made it to the hut, as planned, Harry went ahead to take a peek into the hut. When he came back, he had no good news.

"He is not alone. Just as I was looking in, he was sitting with a cat at a table but two men materialised right in front of him."

"Must have been a portkey," Hermione moaned. "They cannot use the floo because the ministry would know. But everybody can create an unauthorized portkey."

"So, there are three of them?" Malfoy clarified.

Harry nodded.

"Do you know who they are?" Harry nodded again. Draco looked on expectantly.

Harry exhaled: "Warrington and Nott senior." Hermione gasped and Draco cursed under his breath.

Ron looked from one to the other. "So?" All three turned to him and eyed him with different expressions, Hermione with dread, Malfoy with anger, Harry with concern. He still didn't understand. "So, what's the problem? Death Eater is Death Eater, right?"

Harry exhaled forcefully but Hermione answered: "Ron, Draco is still friends with Clive and Theo. They'd be justifiably upset if Draco participated in arresting their fathers." (_A/N I decided to call him Clive. I never liked Cris (sorry, RZZMG) or Charles (sorry, Anne M. Oliver) so my Warrington is named Clive. I checked out English male names and Clive Warrington sounded best. So, there)_

Ron snorted. "Ah, we are having sensibilities for Death Eaters, now, do we?" Harry shook his head at him. "Don't, Ron. It doesn't help to upset a team, you know that."

Ron sneered. "So, we are turning back and changing teams, now, is that it? Because Malfoy here can't do his job, because of a conflict of interest?"

Harry shook his head again. "No, there is no time. The opportunity is too good. By the time we gathered another team and got back, they could be gone again." He focused on the weak link in his team. "I'm calling for the backup team," he procured his Patronus and sent it off with the message, "and you two will stay in the background. You'll secure the perimeter, see that nobody runs and only act if absolutely necessary, alright?"

Draco nodded. Hermione pulled a face but after a look at Malfoy's defeated mien nodded likewise.

"I'll go back to check what they are doing. Ron, you are coming with me. And you two, wait for Corner and Boots. The wards are still down, aren't they?" He waited for the nod from Hermione and Malfoy. "Good. They should be here in five minutes. Then, they will need to walk up the slope here. My Patronus told them not to apparate right here, we don't want to alert the guys in there."

Hermione and Malfoy nodded again. Nobody would dare to deny Harry's leadership.

With a motion of his head, Harry and Ron snuck off toward the hut again. After five steps they were hidden from view behind trees and Hermione and Draco were left alone. They remained silent, each of them lost in their thoughts, one looking after the young men who had just disappeared around the corner and one on the lookout for the backup they were expecting.

Not even ten minutes later, Terry Boots and Michael Corner came quietly through the underbrush. They stopped cautiously when they saw Draco Malfoy standing next to Hermione. After Hermione greeted them with a nod, though, they proceeded to join them.

"Granger," Boots greeted quietly.

"What's he doing here?" Corner mocked not so quietly.

"Shh," Hermione admonished. "He's helping." Michael snorted: "Yeah, right."

Draco had stood next to Hermione and awaited them. He wasn't looking at them but at a group of trees to the right, his face a blank. To Michael's snort he replied a quick and quiet: "Corner, if I had such a colourful leisure activity as you I would shut my mouth real quick." Draco Malfoy, king of blackmail material had struck again.

Hermione send him a quizzical look and glanced at Michael just in time to see him blush. She raised an eyebrow at him and he closed his mouth with a snap.

Terry chuckled. "Right, then. Hermione, fill us in."

So Hermione updated them on the situation and was just about done when Harry and Ron came back around the corner.

Harry added their bit of update with a grin: "They are sitting around the table and talking world domination and the resurrection of Voldemort." Everybody groaned, except Malfoy.

"This never gets old, doesn't it?" Terry exclaimed in a whisper.

"Okay, Harry, how's it going to go?" Michael eagerly wanted to get to the action. Harry eyed them all in turn, then sighed and spoke: "You are all very able duellers. However, there are three grown Death Eaters in there, who will not duel by the rules, so this is not a walk in the park. The safest would be to call in the aurors but we might as well jump up and down here and make some noise to alert them. Plus, it would take even longer. So, we take the safest route available, we'll go in from four sides and stun them between us, then bind them immediately. Hermione and Malfoy stay behind us as backup. Should one of us fall, they will fill the space. Any questions?"

Everybody shook their head. "Okay, let's roll. Ron and I go around the house, you two come from this side," he motioned to Boots and Corner, "Hermione will go after you, Malfoy after us to fill in." He knew that he could deal with Malfoy as a backup but that Boots and Corner still had trust issues. They had no trouble with Hermione, though.

Everybody nodded. "Okay, let's go." He turned around and marched off, Ron falling in line behind him and all others followed.

When they came in view of the hut, Hermione stayed behind Boots and Corner, whereas Malfoy swerved right to follow Harry and Ron behind the hut. Hermione felt a bit disquiet. She didn't have time to communicate with Malfoy, she had expected that they stayed together, not be split up where she couldn't even see him. How were they supposed to guide their compow if they didn't know what the other was doing?

A brief nudge on her magic calmed her somewhat. Maybe the waves would reappear and she would be able to see them. She bit her lip. Get a grip, Hermione, this is not your first time, she thought.

And then everything went very fast. Hermione had just enough time to cast a silencing spell around the area when they were positioned, so they wouldn't lure people here with loud bangs. Flashing lights would hopefully not be seen through the trees surrounding them and the next town was two kilometres away and behind a hill. On Harry's command, each of the four young men in the first line blasted a hole into their assigned wall to enter.

The Death Eaters inside were very seasoned and battle proved, as expected: each of them threw a curse at the person coming in who faced them so quick that some of them weren't able to protect themselves. Ron fell to his knees being hit in the chest and Terry fell backwards. Hermione hurried to catch him before he hit his head and rolled him to the side. Then she threw a stunner at the person surrounded from the hole in the wall. She heard Harry yell "Stupefy" and a body fell to the floor on the inside.

Hermione got a glimpse of a pudgy man and a startled white and brown tabby cat at the table. She heard him yelling: "Gwenny!" before the cat jumped down and vanished in the dust and Hermione became immersed in flashing spells and crashing sounds and couldn't see any more from the dust raised from the blasts. Since Hermione couldn't see, she tried to feel her way into the fray magically and was only half surprised when she felt Draco at the wall to her left, stepping over Ron's form. What was he doing?

He didn't participate in the fighting. Even though he was a (former) Slytherin and excellent liar, he knew he wouldn't be able to look his friends in the eyes again if he actively participated in capturing their fathers. Instead, he moved deftly in the middle of flying spells, swerved around tumbling furniture and threw a Shield charm over all of them, himself included, but left the circle in the middle free. She felt him pulling the magic from her, from the compow they were both connected to. It had been hard not to be distracted by the strange sensation, of feeling the magic flow through her but not by her own spell. As it was, she dodged a spell just in time and threw a stunner while she was falling to her left and while the flash of magic was flying over her, singeing hair on top of her head. She could smell the burning keratin. She caught herself on her left arm before she hit the ground and found that her stunner had hit the mark, even from her awkward bent down position. Drawing unintentionally from their multiplied power, her spell was as strong as recently usual and the man flew a few meters through the air, upset an armchair in flight, hit the opposing wall with a "thump" and slid down with a sickening "slurch".

Hermione covered herself from flying ceramic from her right as a shelf of tableware exploded and heard a yell when Michael was hit by the shards on her right.

She heard Harry yell "Incarcerous" opposite the small room of the hut and knew that her victim had been taken care off. Making her way over to the injured Michael, she saw a stupefied man on the ground and incarcerated him with a quick non-verbal spell before she turned to heal Michael's cut in the shoulder. She had been certain that the two remaining man would have one last Death Eater under control while she checked what damage Michael had received and was absolutely shocked therefore when a spell flew past her cheek, barely missing her and almost hitting Michael in front of her in the face. He dodged it quickly by throwing himself on his side. She swivelled around with her wand in position and looked into the leering face and raised wand of the pudgy man they had identified as Lothor Reddawl. Garbage man, my foot, she thought, the man knows how to fight, too. A realization that came a second too late now.

"Hold it, you all, or I'll blow her lights out," he snarled with a voice like a rusty oil can. Hermione shuddered. She saw Harry and Draco lower their wands and did the same.

"Well, what do we have here? A bunch of children trying to play hero? I think I'll have fun playing with you all. Better not damage my spoils." Only Hermione could see his grin at his words because he was turned to her. She felt a shudder down her spine at his expression of malice. With a quick wand move and a "Petrificus totalus," he made Hermione incapable of moving. Hermione felt the magic flow over and paralyse her and felt terrified at first at being immobilized. For a second, everything stopped moving and it was very quiet in the hut, so quiet that one could almost hear the dust settling.

The second that stretched, well, not quite to eternity but in feeling longer than a second, was broken by a familiar voice and she felt a familiar energy flowing through her and stroke her, like a cat rubbing at your shoulder.

"In your dreams, Reddawl," she heard the familiar voice snarling and then everything became very fast again, like a movie on fast forward. She felt the click of the compow interlacing with her magic, overlaying the spell on her and resolving the paralysation. The next fraction of a second later, she felt a wave of magic pulling from within and flooding from the other side of the room at the same time, meeting at the shabby man in front of her with a whoosh. The man's eyes widened when he felt the magic oncoming and then,he crumbled in slow motion at her feet into a pile of human limps.

Harry, observational as he always was, took the opportunity and shouted "Incarcerous" from the other side, binding the gruff man.

Hermione was over the bound and stunned man the same time as Draco and Harry reached his side. Harry took her shoulder, looking at her wide-eyed: "Hermione."

"I'm okay, Harry, no reason to fuzz." She slapped his hand away.

"But how did you, I mean, you were petrified."

She exchanged a quick look with Draco Malfoy whose expression was a blank. She shrugged. "He can't have done it right, now, can he? I'm still moving."

Harry shook his head: "But, Hermione, …"

Malfoy interrupted with a sneer: "Potter, as fascinating as Granger potential magical abilities may be, I'm sure there will be time to discuss it later. Perhaps we should take care of the captured men and the victims of our group first."

Hermione nodded in agreement. "I'll check on Ron, Michael and Terry and you secure the men and call the Aurors."

Malfoy nodded at her where Harry was still staring and she turned away from the two young men to hide her face. She couldn't lie to Harry, especially not looking him in the eyes. Harry had a sixth sense when it came to her lying. Maybe he really should have been in Slytherin. Or maybe she was just such an exceptionally bad liar.

She bent down to Ron, who was paralysed and lying on his side. A quick sweep discovered that he had simply been hit by a stunner, Merlin's beard, and was as quickly re-enervated. Thank Merlin, the Death Eaters were too surprised to pull out their really dark magic. After she had pulled Ron up and rested him against the outer wall and told him to rest a bit until he had recovered his facilities, she moved over to Michael and quickly healed his bleeding shoulder with a spell. He thanked her and agreed as well to rest for a minute. Terry, she found had been hit by something a little more sinister. A simple "Enervate" did not deliver the expected result.

Hermione bit her lip. She couldn't call Draco over to try out their new-found magic on Terry and see if they could resolve it or they would be discovered. But she could send out her magic to knock in his. She could feel Malfoy and Harry move behind her gathering the bound Death Eaters together in the middle of the room. She reached her magic out to tap Draco's and pulled it together with hers toward Terry. But as easy as it had been with her own magic and the compow, she couldn't see Terry's and therefore, didn't know what hit him.

"I'll go help Granger," she heard Malfoy say behind her. But even with Draco knelt beside her and them both guiding the compow on Terry they didn't know what to do. Draco looked at her earnestly and shook his head.

She turned to Harry to report and saw Michael standing next to him, guarding the stunned Death Eaters.

"Well, Ron is simply resting, Michael as you can see is as good as new," he grinned at her, "but I don't know what hit Terry. And Malfoy doesn't either, not even with his knowledge of dark spells. We'll have to send him to St. Mungo's."

Harry nodded. "Okay. I've sent for Gallows, they should be here any minute." Hermione inhaled and exhaled. All would be well.

While they stood around the bound men in their middle awaiting the Aurors to come and pick up the packages, Warrington senior who had just been hit and bound by Harry's spells awoke with a groan. Harry, Hermione and Corner gathered around him quickly with their wands pointing on him to be able to stun him should he find a way to escape his bounds. Malfoy stayed to watch the other two unconscious Death Eaters to prevent being seen by Warrington senior. The man looked up, squinting, and stared at Harry Potter and his best friend.

"Harry fucking Potter, I should have known," he pushed out between pressed lips.

He snarled further. "How did you get past the wards?"

Hermione calmly stated: "We took them down." And was met with stunned disbelief. "You cannot disable them. The Dark Lord himself created them. They are unbreakable," the man on the floor exclaimed heatedly. Ron having recovered came slowly over at his shouting and stood next to Harry, shielding Malfoy who stood behind Warrington's back, further from view.

"They are not unbreakable. We broke them." Ron sneered at the man on the floor, then looked proudly over at Hermione.

"But that's impossible." Warrington struggled again on the floor.

Hermione shrugged. "As you can see, it's not."

Harry asked suspiciously: "Why is it impossible?

"It's Dark Magic woven into time-space structure that rips you apart, because it puts you at a thousand places at the same time. You cannot disable that." Ron swallowed noisily when he heard what the wards were supposed to do that he so impatiently had not wanted to take the time to dissemble.

Malfoy had to say something. He couldn't let the Weasel take the credit. "Well, we did. End of story." Unfortunately, that put the attention on him.

The man on the floor recognized the voice immediately and turned a little, so he could see who was behind him. He sneered: "Well, well, the young Malfoy. And with a mudblood. You turned traitor then? At least you let others do the dirty work. Didn't expect anything else from you, scrawny little boy you were, not like my strapping son. I wonder behind which rubbish bin your parents found you when they couldn't make their own. Lucius Malfoy not man's enough to make a son?"

Draco hissed, moved beside the trio standing closer to the man and leaned forward in a threatening move. "Watch your mouth, Caleb. Do I not look like my father's son to you?"

Warrington senior sneered: "In looks, perhaps, but Lucius Malfoy would never be seen helping a mudblood."

To the on-looking Gryffindors (the lone Ravenclaw had moved back to watch the other two stunned men), Draco hadn't moved a muscle, not even a twitch in the face but to another true Slytherin he might as well have yelled his fury out for all to hear when he moved his head an infinitesimal fraction of an inch down toward Warrington.

Hermione knew because she felt Draco's fury vibrate on their compow. His magic was becoming a little rough on the edges and she felt a powerfully dark spell building. The teasing of the captured man was getting to him. It was a bit below the belt, she had to admit. Why were men so sensitive when it came to their parentage? Oh, well. She was tempted to put a hand on his shoulder like she would have done with a normal friend to show support but not only did she stand on the far side of him, she also sensed that Draco would not have welcomed it, especially in front of a Death Eater.

The man laughed when he saw Draco's fraction of a move. "What, having sensibilities about a mudblood? Ooooh, I see. Putting your prick away with her, hm? Are all mudbloods like fireballs in the sheets? Does she scream when you impale her? Can I have taste, too?" Draco blew air out of his nostrils like a dragon blows fire. Harry next to him yelled at the man: "Hey, that's my friend you are talking about."

Before his fury could bubble over, though, Hermione reached out a magical "hand" and put it on the frazzled edge of Draco's magic, like a calming hand in the back. Draco inhaled and exhaled at the sensation and straightened up from his predatory crouch, shaking his head.

"You know what? I don't want to listen to you anymore. I'm bored of your tattle. And I don't care what you think of me," he addressed the middle aged man on the floor calmly. If you didn't know him better, you would have been convinced that he was indifferent to the whole thing.

Luckily, the attention shifted away from him with the arrival of the aurors, Jason Gallows in the lead and five aurors in tow.

"Oi, Potter," he shouted on arrival with a huge grin. "Can you leave us some work every once in a while? You're putting us out of commission."

Harry shook his head with an equal grin, his wand trained on the conscious Warrington. "Sorry, Gallows, couldn't wait for you. You will have to catch your own fish."

Gallows laughed and patted shoulders when he joined the group and gave quick instruction to his aurors to pack the captured and bound man away. Hermione showed him Terry and they took him as well to bring him to St. Mungo's. Michael went with them, one, to accompany his friend and two, to have his shoulder checked on Hermione's insistence. He tried to tell her that his shoulder was perfect, thanks to her healing spell, but she wouldn't hear it. With a sigh, he followed Gallows out the hut and left the trio alone with Draco Malfoy. They had followed him out the hut to depart, when Hermione remembered the cat they had seen.

"Harry, wait. What about the cat?"

"Cat? What cat?"

Hermione made an impatient face: "You said there was a cat with Reddawl and I saw it jump off the table when I came in. We have to find it.'

"Really, Hermione, does Crookshanks need company?" Ron asked with an air of a person wanting to leave as quickly as possible.

Hermione glared at him and Malfoy, who had to suppress a snicker, liked her glaring more and more. As long as she was glaring at the weasel and not him, that was.

"Ron, if we had left your new broom behind, you would have turned back without hesitation but you don't want to turn back to rescue a living, breathing being?" she scolded.

Ron rolled his eyes upon her attack and snapped: "Fine, go rescue the poor kitty who could have gone just into the woods, catch a few mice and survive just fine. Don't mind my growling stomach."

Malfoy hid his face under the pretence of having to wipe his eyes. Go on, weasel, he cheered him on in his head, make her see what a loser you truly are. Make her see that your stomach comes before everything and she'll never praise your "qualities" again. Heck, if you do it really bad there is hope that she'll never let you near her again either. That would make my day. And he stopped short at the end of that thought and shook his head over himself. Get a grip, Malfoy. You don't want her either, so why bother? Still, the thought of Hermione letting the weasel touch her gave him the willies.

Harry intervened: "Ron, we can't leave a pet behind, that's against policy. All creatures belonging to captured wizards have to be cared for."

Hermione still stared at Ron like she had never seen him before. This was the man she had believed herself in love with until a few weeks ago? She shook her head and turned back to the hut.

Malfoy turned to walk behind her and Harry followed. Ron groaned but overruled, he walked behind them as well.

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**Hermione's POV:**

When I went back into the hut, I couldn't have cared less whether they were following me or not. But I couldn't believe Ron that he didn't care about a pet being left behind. And I had been right: he would have turned around immediately had it been his beloved Nimbus 2001 (Harry gave him one as a victory present) that remained in the hut. I couldn't believe he was that heartless. Not even Malfoy would have done that. And he was as heartless as they come.

In the quietness of the deserted hut where the dust still settled I tried to get the cat's attention. "Here, kittykittykitty" I crooned. "Here, kittykittykitty."

Malfoy trudged in behind me and remarked: "I hope it's not an intelligent cat. I would be offended if somebody called me that way."

I snorted but I heard an answering meow from under the dresser in the corner. I bent down on my knees in front of it and peeked under the piece of furniture to see some light fur.

I clucked to the cat and offered my hand, rubbing my fingers together to try and entice it from under the dresser. It came, first hesitantly but when I kept crooning and no more flashing magic was to be seen, straight toward me and rubbed against my hand. I lifted it up in my arms and turned to Draco who stood next to me, watching our interaction, while Harry and Ron guarded the entrance.

"What are we going to do with it?" I wondered aloud, stroking the cat's fur and scratching behind its ears. She enjoyed the attention.

"Do whatever you want as long as I don't have to take it, Granger. I don't care for cats," Malfoy snarled.

At his words, the cat turned in my arms and stared straight at him, flicking its tail. He returned the gaze with narrowed eyes but didn't have the decency to blush at his rudeness. Then, with an enormous jump the cat dislodged itself from my arms, became airborne, flew half a metre through the air and landed gracefully right on Draco's shoulder.

Harry and Ron guffawed over the way Draco stood stock still when the cat turned around to face the same way as Draco did and settled as if she was made for sitting exactly there. Even her colours matched Draco's. Draco's white blond hair was a shade between the cat's white and light brown fur. The black dot on its nose and her high vantage point made her look down arrogantly almost the same way Draco did.

"Granger, take the beast of me," he demanded imperiously without moving. I took it as a good sign that he tried not to dislodge the cat from his shoulders and that that was the reason he stood so still. Before I could answer though, the cat rubbed its head against Draco's temple, tussling up his combed back hair, then licked over the bit skin that was visible of his forehead. I could barely suppress a snicker.

Harry and Ron by now full out laughed behind us. Draco turned menacingly toward the animal on his shoulder and demanded: "Get off, you beast."

The cat, Gwenny as I had heard Reddawl address her, replied by licking over his nose. I giggled. "I think, you've been adopted, Draco." There was a glint in his eyes that disappeared right away again.

"I don't think so," he said quietly. And in his deepest growl he threatened Gwenny: "Get off or I'll send you where other pets go who displease their magical owners."

I heard Ron gasp. "You wouldn't.."

"Watch me," Draco continued to growl. Draco Malfoy growling is never a good sign. But Gwenny didn't seem to know that. She raised one of her front paws and tapped lightly once on Draco's cheek. Draco looked shocked for a moment but then his features relaxed into complacency when Gwenny purred at him and tapped her nose on his forehead.

Harry chortled. "I think she just gave you a slap in the face for bad manners. You certainly have a knack for females doing that to you."

Draco's again menacing gaze turned to me and regarded me for a moment. "So, it's your fault, Granger, you are setting bad examples."

I sighed. "Guilty as charged. Now, give me the cat. I'll take it for now and see if Crookshanks can tolerate her until we can find a better home for her." I moved to take her of Malfoy's shoulder. He took a step back and snarled.

"Don't you dare take my cat from me." And when I stopped my approach in shock, he turned back to his shoulder and said: "Gwenny, hm? I am Draco Malfoy, pleasure to meet you. Do you like owls, Gwenny? You'll have to get along with Adonis if you come live with me. He's my eagle owl and you have to be nice to him. He was there first. You are just a foundling that I take in. So, no menacing Adonis or you are out in the street. Can you do that?"

My jaw dropped and my eyes started to water because they'd been so wide open watching the interaction between Malfoy and the cat. Gwenny rubbed her head against Draco's forehead and purred.

And while we three watched on, totally stumped at the scene in front of us, he turned with the cat on his shoulder: "Alright, it's settled. Let's get your previous bum owner shipped off to Azkaban, then." And he walked out of the hut, the cat swaying on his shoulder but upright holding tight, her tail hanging down over his shoulder and clinging lightly around his neck from behind, meshing her colours with his hair.

I exchanged a bewildered glance with Harry and Ron, meeting the exact same feeling in their faces and then we turned to walk behind Malfoy as if in trance. Maybe he wasn't as heartless as I thought.

I didn't see Gwenny again until much later, when I actually went to visit Draco at the Manor. But he gave me frequent updates on how well she was settling in. His mother hadn't minded her at all and she left Adonis alone, enjoying the gardens and sleeping the day away on Chesterfields in all rooms available to her. He didn't tell me where she slept the nights. The house-elves saved her the best scraps and when I saw her again, her fur was gleaming like a well-cared for cat.

Malfoy waited outside for us, Gwenny on his shoulder. He informed us that he would have to drop the cat off at the Manor first and would then join us for the debriefing in half an hour. Harry nodded and Malfoy disapparated away after he had taken Gwenny off his shoulder and tucked her under his cloak. I apparated with Harry and Ron into the Atrium of the Ministry and we went up to the second level into our shared office without speaking a word. The fight and the fact that we had injuries on our side gave us room for thought.

Gallows joined us after Malfoy had made it back and we debriefed. Malfoy reported that he took care of the cat left behind and if nobody would come and claim it he would keep it at his Manor.

"It's not that we have vermin at the Manor but it can help us that it stays that way." he finished nonchalantly. I chuckled. We didn't tell Gallows how that cat had adopted Malfoy and not the other way round. I knew that cats sometimes went for people who did exactly not like them, but I wasn't sure with Draco Malfoy. I was aware that he was not a cat person per se but if a cat went to him, he couldn't be all bad, could he? She had gone straight for him and even purred while doing that. Cats were excellent judges of character; just take a look at Crookshanks. Maybe not all was lost with Malfoy. If he didn't insult you, he actually had quite good manners.

After the debriefing, Harry tried to get us alone to talk but Malfoy and I made our excuses and went to the exercise room. We needed to talk about what was going on.

As soon as he closed the door behind us, I turned around and asked him: "Alright, what exactly did you do?"

He shrugged: "What exactly do you mean?"

"I mean what did you do, step by step," I menaced.

He rolled his eyes: "You looked a little lost when we turned around the corner, so I touched your magic. I protected all of us with a "Protego" and I intervened when Reddawl cornered you with his petrification and felled him, drawing our magic in on him. Potter took care of the incarceration and then I was adopted by a cat. Anything else, Granger?"

I breathed deeply, once, twice. "I want to know if you freed me from the petrification because I didn't do it."

"Yes, you did. I didn't do it. The compow linked with you or you with it and it clicked and you were free, right?"

I snapped for air. "Yes. But I thought you did it."

He shook his head and pointed a finger at my chest. "No, all I did was drawing the compow to overwhelm Reddawl. You did this all by yourself, Granger. Get used to it. The compow is an extra power and easily available, Granger. Learn to use it."

I panted. With hindsight I believe the strain of the mission caught up with me because I struggled to get a hold on myself. Using extra power, check. Handling power, check. Hermione Granger, handling extra power, oh Gawd, I couldn't do it. I was just a muggleborn, was I able to compete with a pureblooded wizard born and raised into magic? No. No!

He shook my shoulders. "Granger? Granger, get a grip. You can do it. If anybody can do it, you can. If anybody can conquer magic hitherto unknown, you can. You are the Know-it-all. You are the only person who ever truly annoyed Snape because he couldn't fault you for knowing things. Did you see his face every time you answered his questions? He was so pissed off that you were right, time and again. Stop it, Granger. You're shaking."

Again with hindsight, I'm pretty sure that Draco Malfoy absolutely did not know what to do anymore because I was shaking in my shoes from the aftershock. He was at his wits end and so he did the only thing he could to shock me out of my shock: he kissed me.

It did the trick, I hate to admit. His soft but determined lips on mine, moving, grasping, devouring my mouth. I overcame my shock in no time and focused solely on the feeling of his hungry lips on mine. I'd been here before, the night before death, before danger, the air vibrating, a desperate kiss, a search for connection in the face of imminent threat, of danger, of death, of loss. He had been desperate, lost, torn. And his kiss now expressed all of that. He wanted to conquer and be conquered all at once. To win and be won. To overpower and succumb. To manifest his power and superiority and be dominated by a greater power at the same time. That's why he worked with me. I was his true opponent. If he could conquer me, he could conquer anybody. I was his equal and he was desperate to establish his powers once and for all. He wanted me to take my stand as his equal or relinquish it, so he would know where he stood. If he could beat me now, he would know. If I withstood him, he would know. I just needed to make a stand, he wanted me to. But it wasn't that easy. I knew that much. It was a new fight every day. You could never settle it for good. So I kissed back. To show him that this fight was never won. That is was carried out again and again. To the great pleasure of the fighters, actually. Because that was the game of life: to win and be won. To fight or give in. To dominate or succumb. Decision, decisions. That's what makes life worthy. To decide each day how you want to live it. To have your way drawn out for you each and every day makes it incredibly boring for the explorative mind. This was what he wanted. He wanted me to take his decision. But he also wanted me to refuse it for him. I was not going to make it easy for him. And I think he liked that. So, I kissed back and I shoved him and I took his lips between my teeth and nipped on it. And had him shove me back against the wall and drive into my lips like the truth of the world was hidden in them.

And to top it all of, our compow made itself know by waving magic around us. Whenever I opened my eyes (rarely) I saw purple and red and blue waves around us, weaving, swirling, twirling.

This was it. This was what I had been looking for. This fighting for the upper hand. This not knowing how the outcome would be. Everybody else before had been like fishing in an aquarium. No challenge. If only it wouldn't be Draco Malfoy. The moment I realized this, I felt him come to the same conclusion because he withdrew. He took a step back without moving. I felt his impetus diminishing and pulling back the same way mine did. Finally, he was able to pull his lips away from mine and breathe heavily against my chest. I felt my nipples constrict even though they were covered from the feeling of his heavy breathing over them.

And then I did the only thing that women do when they've been surprised by a kiss and are too confused to know whether they liked it or not: I slapped him. Hard. And of course, like all men who are confused by the slap after the kiss he took a step back in shock instead of kissing again to give the woman the opportunity to find out IF she possibly liked it. Which is not a bad thing as such. Because a slap can mean NO. But women usually don't kiss back ferociously if they don't like it at all. It's all very complex and confusing. Even to us women. I can't imagine how confusing it has to be for men.

"What is it with women and slapping?" he hissed, a granite glint in his eyes. "I was trying to shake you out of your shock and you slap me. Well, see if I EVER help you again," he spat further.

"Shake me out of my shock by KISSING me?" I yelled at him. "Are you insane? What about shaking my shoulders, what about slapping me, what about touching my magic? What makes you think I would want…"

He narrowed his eyes even further, if that was at all possible. And he would have had a sharp reply to my accusation had I finished it if Harry hadn't come in right that second.

You know, the thing with Harry is that he sees and feels things happening before they actually do. Don't get me wrong, he's not a visionary or a clairvoyant like Trelawney was and claimed to be. He just observes people and draws conclusions from it before the people actually know that something is going to happen. He's just gifted that way. I believe this was how he understood Voldemort finally. Maybe he should have been in Slytherin after all. Malfoy was another case of observing people well. Only he used his knowledge to outsmart them for his own advantage. Harry used his knowledge to prevent things. And that's why he came in at that exact moment. I had been surprised that he had let us run off with our flimsy excuses before. I had been certain that he would come after me again to question me. He must have seen the exchanges between Malfoy and me out there at the hut. And the unexplained magic that overwhelmed Reddawl. And he hadn't been done with regards to my petrification, only distracted. I knew he would have questions.

And now he came to claim the answers. Sometimes Harry was scary in his persistence. I only hoped he hadn't heard my last yell. I didn't want to explain to Harry that I had been kissed by Draco Malfoy and enjoyed it immensely.

"Malfoy, what's that on your cheek?"

Draco Malfoy glared at Harry Potter, his former sworn enemy as if he could skewer him with looks alone: "Not that it's any of your business, Potter, but I may have gotten in touch with poison ivy out in the bush and received a rash from it."

Harry blinked. "On your cheek?"

Malfoy stood high and erect: "On my cheek. Or maybe I'm allergic to cats and thanks to you, I now have a rash inducing beast in my house, threatening my health." Incidentally, I had slapped the cheek where Gwenny had patted him just an hour before. Malfoy narrowed his eyes to rub in his last blow at Harry. "Does the minister know that you endanger the health of the people who work with you and your little band of friends?"

Harry spluttered. "I.. what.. Malfoy, are you insane? How was I to know that you had a cat allergy? And it's not like I forced the cat on you, you took it by yourself."

"I believe that I quite clearly demanded that somebody took the beast of my shoulder." He bent forward in a predatory threatening move.

"And then you refused when Hermione went to take it." Harry fumed at him.

Malfoy straightened up again. "Ah. Be that as it may, I will have to go to St. Mungo's to see a healer about my rash now. Granger was just examining it and telling me in no uncertain terms that I should do so, weren't you, Granger?"

The fact that he gave me an out for our proximity when Harry came in took me by surprise. But I jumped on it. "I, oh, yes, I, yes, absolutely," I managed to squeak out. I might have blushed but if I did, Harry didn't notice. At least he didn't say anything.

"Well, then, Malfoy, be on your way. I need a word with you, Hermione."

Malfoy stared at me and saw me swallow at Harry's proposition. "Actually, Potter, I was hoping Granger could accompany me. I don't know how bad it's going to be. I might faint on my way. You wouldn't want a dead Malfoy on your file, would you?"

If he had slapped Harry in the face, he couldn't have looked more shocked. He gawped at his former school bully with his mouth open. I had to give it to him, Malfoy was running to true from. Nobody out-manipulated him in his best form. Nobody.

He turned towards the door. "Come along, Granger. Make sure I get to the healers safely," he demanded imperiously. And I, relieved for the way out, followed like a guilty little sheep. "Bye, Harry, I'll see you later."

Harry managed to just wave his hand after me, still gawping before the door fell shut behind us.

.

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_A/N: This last scene is for one of my reviewers who likes surprise kisses. She says so on her profile. It surprised me as well. I didn't know I was going to write it before it appeared on the page. I had a glass of wine and it just flowed out of me. I should drink more often (don't take this seriously). Highly overdue, this kiss, in my opinion. Let's see where it takes them, alright?_

_And I did it again. This (part of a) chapter became longer and longer, so I had to split it again. Chapter 14 now has four parts._


	17. Olive branch

**Chapter 14 (part 4): Olive branch**

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**Draco's POV:**

Granger had thanked me nicely for saving her from Potters questions. We had separated in the Ministry atrium: instead of continuing to pretend we were going to St. Mungo's, she and I went home separately. The kiss was never mentioned again until much, much later. I didn't quite know why, but we definitely agreed that we didn't want to share the news of our compow just yet. We knew we wouldn't be able to put it off much longer, but we kept pushing the disclosure back and back. As I said, it was just a hunch but we likely thought that our mostly unnoticed work together would come to a sudden end when word spread what happened to us in sixth year. Most likely, Granger would be jostled away to safe her maiden virtue from the bad Malfoy who overpowered her to connect his evil magic with her. They had no idea, these cretins. And in my regard, they could remain that way just fine.

I was surprised, though, when Granger offered me the proverbial olive branch one night.

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****

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It had turned out that Terry had been hit with a darker version of a stunner. The spell had been changed, so that it was immune to a simple "Enervate". A more advanced version of an energising spell had been necessary to awake Terry. No lasting effects had remained, though and Terry had been discharged from St. Mungo's the day after he was awoken.

The next few days were extremely busy for all. The fact that one of the young people around Harry Potter had been seriously bespelled in the act of an apprehension brought up the question if these missions weren't too dangerous for the young untrained men and women, who were basically doing the work of aurors. A quick meeting with Gallows, Robards and Harry Potter was scheduled and when they parted they agreed that the future missions were to be taken only with backups from professional aurors. And that the group of young people would be employed by the ministry in an adjunct auror position with all health benefits and the provision to be able to start auror training immediately if they so wished.

With the help of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy's tweaked point spell they had a list of hiding places of missing Death Eaters that would last them for months of employment and provide work for any additional hand that they could get.

The days thus usefully occupied until the next Friday night, Harry was just about to leave for the day when Hermione called after him: "Harry, is Ginny up for a workout tonight?"

He turned back to his best friend. "I don't know, Mione, we had plans to go out, would that do for you?"

"Where were you going?" She looked uncertain.

Harry shrugged. "Some club. The music is supposed to be very good."

Malfoy had followed the discourse with only mild interest. He didn't have specific plans for this Friday night, he didn't have a date for once and he could always join Zabini and Parkinson to go to one club or another if the mood struck him. He would have never thought of going with Potter's friends, though. His interest was awakened, however, when Hermione said: "Draco, you want to join us?"

His head snapped up, and he stared at her unbelievingly, "Excuse me?"

"Mione, you sure?" Harry intervened, a little whiny. Their question and answer session had never taken place due to Malfoy's adept distraction scheme. With the busy week they had had, Harry hadn't gotten around to corner Hermione again. They all deserved a night out, for sure, and he knew that she and Malfoy worked well together. Their point spells really had done the trick. But that didn't mean that he had to have the ferret around on a night out.

Hermione, however, gave him one of her Don't-you-dare-defy-me-now-stares: "Oh, yeah."

Potter replied with his Are-you-mental-inviting-the-ferret stare. Hermione huffed and answered with a Are-you-calling-me-mental stare, followed up by a You-know-exactly-how-much-you-owe-me glare with narrowed eyes.

The Yes-I-know-and-wouldn't-dream-of-defying-you-stare with sagging shoulders from Potter settled the issue and with a reluctant sigh he said: "Well, if you're sure."

Malfoy had watched the stare exchange with some amusement but was confused of why it had taken place. "Wait, you want me to come with you?"

Hermione shrugged. "Yeah."

He stared at her: "Why?"

She shrugged again: "Because it's a going out after work and we work together?"

Harry snarled from the other side of the room: "Or it's a going out with friends and she drags you in?"

Malfoy was stumped. Granger wanted him to go out with them? What for? A thought struck him, though: having Potter incensed because of his company was worth it. He could not imagine a better way to spend his Friday night than riling Potter and likely the Weasel up as well. The Weasel for obvious reasons. Ha. Yes, he had to be grateful for their effort in defeating Voldemort but come on, it didn't mean he couldn't do his favourite pastime anymore, right? Right.

He shrugged. "Alright."

A little later they met up with other friends at the Phoenix Bar (_A/N: You will laugh or roll your eyes but there really was Phoenix Bar in the city in Canada where I used to live)_. After a round of drinks, the music started to get to their limps. When a piece with a good rhythm came up (_A/N: think "For your Entertainment" by Adam Lambert, I swear I have the best ideas when listening to him. Or Rihanna. Or Maroon 5's: Moves like Jagger has actually quite fitting lyrics. I can't get this song out of my head and I see Draco and Hermione with it. Well, except for the Jagger moves, that is. Check it out),_ Ginny jumped up: "Oh, Hermione, we've got to dance."

Hermione grimaces: "Ginny, I'm all tense. I'm not going to look good on the dance floor. I need to work my muscles." She rolled her shoulders. "My upper back in particular."

Ginny wouldn't hear off it and pulled Hermione up on her hand: "You can do that while dancing. Come on."

Hermione sighed and got up: "Oh, alright."

Ginny pulling Hermione behind her, they walked quickly to the dance floor and started moving. Draco watched them as under the flashing lights it looked like a different photo was taken for each second. Almost like their stroboscopic technique.

Hermione started shaking out her shoulders, circling her head, and moving her arms around and all in good rhythm. She raised her face to the ceiling with her eyes closed, which gave her an ethereal look, with some hair over her face. She swivelled her head again and with the rhythmic moves of her stomach it pushed out her chest. 'Merlin's beard', Draco thought, 'Granger's body has a female shape. I never noticed before. And she looks quite adept on the dance floor.' He knew her moves were meant to relax her muscles more than anything but with the swinging of her hips and the pushing of her chest, her moves looked lascivious.

With a sly look from the corner of his eyes, Draco noticed that all males at their table stared, Seamus, Dean, Neville, Michael and Terry who had been welcomed back like a lost son, Ron anyway and Harry, and even a few men from the other tables as well. He felt a growl in his throat, thinking that the other males might be looking at Granger the same way as he was.

Draco focused back on Granger and was mesmerized. He had never seen Granger let loose after a few drinks. Mostly because she had never had a few drinks, as far as he knew. In her state, she looked like a tipsy woman ready to be taken home and ravished. A coarse misjudgement as he knew. Even in a pissed state Granger was not to be underestimated; her hexes would still sting like a bitch. And she wasn't drunk. But it showed her for the first time as a woman who let go of control, as a woman with needs and wants, a sensual woman, one that would show her throat as much as she would bite you. Draco felt hot and cold. Like all the other males at the table (even the gay ones) he was watching her, although he was pretty sure that Potter was watching the Weaselette right next to her. Draco could see as much as feel the air crackling around her, attuned to her magic after all their work together, all the tension releasing, as she relaxed her muscles in her arms, neck and back. He felt his leg muscles tensing, ready to jump up to saunter over to her, move with her and stroke his itching hands over the sinuous body she so sensually displayed, dive into the exciting energy she released, give in to her yin that she had never showed before. At least not to him.

But with Ron present, he knew he couldn't. She was the Weasel's girl. And he was not going to get into a fight with Potter's best friend over territorial issues. He heard them whispering: "Ron, I think you need to take her home. She'll burn herself to ashes if she won't get an outlet. All this energy she's been working with recently needs to go somewhere." From the corner of his eye, Draco could see Potter give his best mate a sly grin.

Ron gulped, and looked a little uncertain. Harry raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong? Are you two okay?"

Ron looked down and whispered for only Harry to hear. "Yeah, yeah, it's just … she bites." Harry looked flabbergasted. In a careful but still sharp answering whisper, he replied. "What?"

It was Draco's turn to gulp against the shivers threatening to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes but the images attacking him of Hermione Granger biting in a passion didn't make the situation any better. Was the Weasel insane? A passionate woman in his bed and he had trepidations?

He pretended to not be able to hear a thing of what they were discussing, of not paying attention, watching the dancers, sipping his drink. But he wanted to hear the next reply from the Weasel. Ron, he corrected himself, he had to start calling him Ron if he wanted Hermione's acceptance; or at least Weasley. And soon he likely had to get up and either join the dancers or leave. Just then Hermione did a move, spreading her arms, rolling her shoulders and moving her torso and hips to the rhythm that reminded Draco very much of an orgasmic arch and he almost spit out his drink in shock. If he didn't know he was looking at Hermione Granger and that she did all these moves in total innocence, displaying her throat and neck and arching her back and hips, her long hair flowing down her back, not knowing how she looked and appeared to the males in this room, he would have thought, she was hitting on him and he would have grabbed her off the dance floor and pulled her to the quiet loo corner and shagged her senseless. But this was Ron's girl and he couldn't do anything other than to bite on the inside of his lip to produce a pain that would antagonize his tight trousers. Since he closed his eyes against the pain at the same time, and new images of her writhing under him in an exact copy of said arch overwhelmed him, it didn't help much.

He barely heard Ron's answer, an urgent whisper: "She wants certain things and I'm not sure if I am the one to give it to her." From the corner of his eye Draco saw Harry's I-can't-believe-I-have-to-give-my-best-friend-advice-on-how-to-shag-my-other-best-friend-but-then-I-am-sleeping-with-his-sister-so-I-have-to-put-up-with-it-I-am-so-screwed grimace before it was too much to take sitting still.

Draco jumped up from his seat to move to the dance floor. Both men looked at him startled, having forgotten that he was there.

Ron startled, said the first thing that came to his mind which was exactly what he had been talking about with Harry: "Ha, Malfoy, careful, she bites." Draco Malfoy gave Ron a condescending look sideways and then continued his way to the dance floor.

Quietly he mumbled, more to himself: "I'm banking on that."

When he got to the dance floor, he pushed himself behind Hermione who turned immediately to face him. While moving to the music, he asked Hermione if she and her friend were alright and if they wanted to return to the table. Hermione's eyes gleamed at him and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Not until after you danced with me." Malfoy swallowed his gulp and scolded himself in his mind: 'She's Weasley's girl, Weasley's girl, Weasley's girl.'

"As friends?" she continued on, pushing her hips against his at the same time.

He mentally shook himself: 'One dance, come on, you can do one dance.'

"One dance and then I'll need to go," he said. "Okay", she smiled up at him and pulled him closer.

He danced with her trying to hold her as professionally as possible, to not let his hands slide anywhere they would not be socially appropriate. Despite his restraint, Hermione let herself relax against his moving body and they moved quite in tune. So much so that Ginny became aware and moved back to her seat next to Harry.

He and Ron had finished their conversation and simply sat quietly next to each other, nipping on their drinks and watching the dancers. Ginny nudged Harry's side and jerked her chin towards the dance floor. "Look at them," she said quietly, not to raise her brother's attention. Harry's look followed hers and saw Hermione and Malfoy moving close and very well together. They were so in tune that they looked like they had forgotten the world around them.

He frowned. Hermione and Malfoy? That didn't sit right. She had said there was nothing between them. It sure didn't look like nothing. They moved as if in trance together. He could almost see sparks of magic flying around them. What were they doing together when they worked that made them so close? Harry shifted in his seat. "I'm going to get Hermione."

His move alerted Ron's attention. "Hermione? Why? What's with Hermione?"

"Nothing, Ron," both Harry and Ginny quickly replied.

But it was too late; Ron had seen them. And even though he (and few others) knew that he and Hermione were no longer a lover's couple, he still felt possessive and protective about Hermione. And Malfoy, the pureblooded bigot, was not going to get his fingers on Hermione. He jumped up. Ginny tried to stop him with a "Ron, wait."

But he ignored her: "Don't worry, Harry, I'll get her."

Malfoy and Hermione hadn't noticed the others talking about them. While they were not as "love drunk" as to forget the world, after all their training together they were quite able to conjure the magical waves at will and now, they were captivated in watching their magic weave and twirl and combine and wind its way in and through and around them. It was just so natural now. To an onlooker it would have seemed they were looking each other deep in the eyes but they were looking concentrated on the movements of their combined energy between them and moving automatically to the music. It had a soothing effect on both of them. When Ron reached them and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder, they both felt ripped out of their observations and were startled and disappointed that their peaceful time together had come to an end.

"Hermione, I think it's time I brought you home," Ron snarled.

Hermione was flustered and distracted and didn't think clearly. She forgot that she no longer owed Ron an explanation who she was dancing with. And in what way. "Oh, um, yes, Ron, alright." She let go of Draco's neck and turned to her ex-boyfriend-best friend. With a last turn back she chanced a glance at Malfoy. "Goodnight, Draco."

His gaze was clear and stoic. "Goodnight, Granger. See you Monday."

Ron sent a last glare at Malfoy and dragged Hermione away with him. They stopped once at the shared table and then left toward the exit. Draco guessed that they would apparate when outside. He sighed and went back to the table where Harry and Ginny waited for him. Harry looked suspicious, whereas Ginny eyes him simply curious. "Malfoy, what was that?"

Draco glanced coolly at Harry and replied: "What was what, Potter? You need to be a bit more specific."

"What were you doing with Hermione? You know who she belongs to." At that, Ginny startled and turned to her boyfriend to send him a glare that was ignored, then she bit her lip and looked down. She had always been a close confidant of Hermione's. But it was not her place and the right time to say anything at the moment.

Malfoy retained his coolness. "I wasn't doing anything with Granger. And I was about to leave soon anyway. I can clearly tell if I am not welcome."

Harry snarled. "Not clearly enough. You should have never come with us." At that Ginny put an arresting hand on Harry's arm, hissed "Harry" and smiled apologizing at Malfoy.

Malfoy put his drink down with a clunk. "I was invited," he snarled back.

Harry growled. "Well, and now your host left, so maybe you should follow."

Malfoy snorted. And with a "Clearly" he turned and left.

As soon as he had rounded the corner to the exit, Ginny turned on her boyfriend and ripped his head off: "Harry, what on earth?"

Harry frowned. "He was hitting on Hermione. You should have more loyalty to your own brother."

Ginny shook in rage. "Harry, you have no idea what you are talking about. You are so clueless, and to imply that I have no loyalty was way below the belt. It is not my place to tell you, but I suggest that you talk to Hermione tomorrow morning. Do that before you bite Malfoy's head off again for him dancing with your best friend who ASKED HIM TO."

Harry froze. "Hermione asked him to dance?"

Ginny was still seething. "YES. And she was the one who moved close and relaxed into him and he was the one who tried to keep an appropriate distance."

Harry wasn't entirely calmed. "What business did she have to ask him to dance? She is with Ron."

Ginny huffed. "That, I believe, you should talk to Hermione about."

"Are you insinuating that your brother and Hermione are no longer together?"

"I am not insinuating, I insist that you talk to Hermione tomorrow. Or better tonight because I am leaving now and you'll have a lot of time tonight."

It was Harry's turn to huff. "I don't want to interrupt anything by floo-calling Hermione now. Ron will have my head."

Ginny narrowed her eyes to slits. "Aren't you listening? The only thing you will be interrupting is Crookshanks having a belly rub. Hermione will not mind if you floo her tonight." With that she turned, waved a good-bye to the other guys of their party and stalked out, her red hair trailing behind her like burning wrath.

Harry was stunned. What had he done wrong? Since when was it wrong to defend a friend's honour and stand up for him or her? He needed to talk to Hermione. ASAP.

.

****

.

Draco had apparated straight home to his suite of rooms in Malfoy Manor. After serving himself to another glass of firewhiskey (the good one, not the one you get in a club) he dropped on his couch and stared into his fireplace. Thanks to the house-elves, it was nicely stoked and provided just the right backdrop for deep thinking.

So, he had discovered that Granger was a woman. He had known that before tonight but watching her dancing, no, not dancing, just moving thoughtlessly, without the slightest attention to the effect of her femininity, had let it sink in. And just when he thought, he had mastered his reaction to that effect and enjoyed the peaceful be-together with her (on her invitation, he'd like to add), reality came rushing back in form of a Weasel who misunderstood and Harry Potter who was not far behind. Only the Weaselette seemed to have some understanding but then, she would know more about the female psyche. Naturally.

He shouldn't have gone. He knew it the moment he agreed, that he would regret it one way or another. Ah, glorious hindsight. He wanted to integrate himself into society but he didn't need to become friends with Harry Fucking Potter and his entourage. He didn't need to stay with them much longer either. Just a few more Death Eaters rounded up and he would feign his importance in having to care for his family business and leave their little troop of renegades. Yes, he felt comfortable with Granger but there would be other women he could feel comfortable with. He didn't NEED her. Not at all. He didn't owe her anything and Ravenclaw and Slytherin had separated quite well (reportedly) despite their adjunction and no harm done.

He was going to stay professional until his time was done and he had built a good enough reputation for helping Harry Potter. And then they could all go and fuck themselves.

.

****

.

**Hermione's POV:**

Harry flooed me around midnight. I hadn't gone to bed yet, too confused to shut my thoughts down. I was sitting on my sofa staring into the fire and scratching Crookshanks behind the ear when Harry's head appeared. He looked anxious and clearly disappointed when he saw me sitting on the couch. I smiled at him and asked him to come through.

"Are you alone?" he asked suspiciously. I was taken aback.

"Yes, Harry, but even if Ron had been here, you could have come through."

That was again clearly not to Harry's liking but he made his way through and flopped himself on the couch next to me. For a minute or two, no-one spoke and one could only hear Crookshanks' purring. Finally, Harry sighed and spoke up.

"I know, it's not really any of my business but you two are my best friends and this evening was more than strange. So I have to know, what's going on with you and Ron?" He ended it in a question, to preserve politeness in something that indeed should not concern him but there was no mistaking his meaning. He meant, you better tell me because you owe me that much. And I did. We all did. We owed him until the end of time. Personally and globally.

I sighed. "Harry, what can I say? Ron and I tried our best to become a couple but it just doesn't click. You don't want to hear the details but to become a couple like you and Ginny, we'd have to do more than we are willing. It just doesn't work that way with us. I still love him as a best friend; we don't hate each other because of disappointed love or anything barmy, but it doesn't make sense to lie anymore."

Harry was quiet and stared on Crookshanks' exposed belly. "When were you going to tell me?" He was so quiet I almost hadn't heard him.

I blew up my cheeks in a clueless sort of way. "Soon?"

The brilliant glare from his emeralds meant You-should-know better. I swallowed and tried again. "Gosh, Harry, it is still fresh, we don't know ourselves how to continue meaningfully. Take a look at Ron's behaviour tonight. We are clearly over as a couple, he knows it, I know it, I know he's going out with Lavender again, funny he didn't tell you, and it doesn't hurt one bit. But he still can't see me dancing with other men. And I was so confused that I let him walk over me. And I probably have to apologize to Malfoy because I left him standing there on the dance floor and went with Ron like a sheep to the slaughterhouse and there was absolutely no reason for it."

Harry mumbled: "If you apologize, make sure you tell me before, because I need to do that, too."

I inhaled sharply. "What? Why? What did you do?"

Harry sighed: "I put him in his place, thinking he was out to steal Ron's girlfriend."

I hissed. "You did what?"

Harry looked at me sheepishly. "I told him he shouldn't have come with us and that he was clearly out of place to hit on you?"

I was furious. "But he didn't. I asked him to dance with me."

Harry looked away. "Yeah, that's what Ginny said, too. But you should have seen the two of you dancing. It looked like you were lost to the world."

I was seething. "It wouldn't have mattered had we snogged on the dance floor or not, what were you thinking to attack Malfoy? He has tried so hard to fit in, to really help, to find footing. And you throw it in his face that we don't want him. And it's not even true. I think you should apologize first and then let me know."

Harry mumbled something that this time, I really didn't understand. "What did you say?" I asked menacingly.

Harry looked up, sheepishly: "I said you're right. I'll apologize. But I thought I was defending my best friend and his girlfriend who is likewise my best friend, so if you had told me, none of this would have happened."

I overheard his accusation. "You better apologize. He does not deserve this." He looked at me incredulously and I realized that I had just vehemently defended Draco Malfoy (again), but I didn't care. I had had enough excitement for one night.

"Good night, Harry." I stood up and went to my bedroom. Harry could see himself out. I knew he would.

"Good night, Hermione." I heard a whoosh in the fireplace and was left alone with my thoughts.

.

****

.

**Draco's POV:**

My head felt like it was split in half. And open. Wide open. And something knocking on my brain. Until I realized that somebody was knocking on my cranium. That's when I cracked open my eyes. At least for a bit. Zabini. What was he doing in my bedroom at five o'clock in the morning? At least, that's what it felt like. And then he started talking, Merlin forbid.

"Up and at them, sunshine. What's with you, Draco, late night? With whom? Do I know the beauty? Do tell." He plunked himself down on the ledge of my bed.

"Mmpf …Zabini… go..way" I tried to communicate to leave me the fuck alone.

"Ah, honey, you need to get up, shower to get the stench of you and then tell us all about it." Pansy. He brought Pansy as a back-up right away? Merlin, whatever did I do to my friends that they treat me so rudely?

"We'll wait for you in the breakfast parlour. Hurry up." Pansy tirilied and pranced out of my room.

I didn't feel like getting up because the last five firewhiskeys I had drunk to calm my fury weighed my head down like a thousand pounds and the fact that I had seen a brunette with wild hair writhing and moaning beneath me all night didn't make it easier to wake up and get up. But I somehow managed to get out of bed and into the shower and get dressed. Twenty minutes later, I met them at the breakfast table, talking amiably to my mother who just finished her breakfast.

"And absolutely let me know your wedding date. It is so good to see a nice couple matched. I wished, Draco could find a witch just to his taste as well, …"

Blaise eyed me carefully when I strutted in and murmured: "I think he did." Fortunately, my mother didn't hear him.

When I approached the table, she got up and came toward me. "Good morning, Draco. Did you sleep well?"

I gave her a good morning kiss on the cheek and steered toward my chair. "Yes, thank you, mother. And I am rather hungry for breakfast now."

"I'll leave you to it then. I have a floo call to make. Will you two stay for lunch?" she addressed Pansy and Blaise.

"Likely not, Mrs Malfoy. We have lunch with Pansy's parents."

"Ah, well, that's too bad. We'll have to do it another time then."

Blaise stood up to take her hand for a well-mannered kiss goodbye. "Absolutely, Mrs Malfoy."

Mother tittered. "Blaise. What excellent manners in such as young man as yourself. And call me Narcissa. Tata" With that she turned and left the breakfast parlour.

Both my friends turned to me the minute she had vanished out the door.

Blaise ventured ahead for both of them. "Spill, my man, what happened last night?"

I tried to elude. It was none of their concern what happened last night. I had considered my options and plotted my future path from here on out, and it would do no good to mention Granger to them now, where it was truly over whatever had been developing between us. Workwise, anyway. Nothing personal. I snorted: Granger and me personal, it sounded almost funny; bizarre even.

"What makes you think something happened last night? I had a glass of firewhiskey or two and you barged in early this morning right into my bedroom. Does a man who WORKS all week," I stared sternly at Blaise when I said that, because he had never worked an honest day in his life, "not have the right to sleep in on the weekend?"

Blaise didn't even blink. "He would have, if that was what he was doing. But you were seen in the club last night, my friend, dancing with Granger and having a row with Potter and then leaving. Care to explain?" Pansy looked at me in anticipation for what was surely going to be a juicy story.

And then I made a fatal mistake. I am still scolding myself for that, a newly selected Slytherin wouldn't have done that and I was a Slytherin veteran. All this Gryffindor rubbish honesty must have been rubbing of on me. Or it showed how blank my nerves really were. I should stay of the sauce, I really should. Well, as it happened, I responded to Blaise's question and groaned: "Granger." And at their nonplussed faces I put the icing on top and added: "Granger happened."

With still nonplussed faces they asked for clarification: "Granger? As in Hermione Granger? Buck-toothed, bushy-haired, Know-it-all Granger? The one you were dancing with? Potter's mudblood?"

"Don't call her that," I snarled which resulted in two rows of raised eyebrows.

"Excuse me?" Blaise responded with a smile spreading over his face, I was sure was going to turn diabolical.

"Don't call her the M-word," I growled, angry about my outburst. Pansy looked at me from the other side of the table as if Christmas had come early this year and she had received the jewellery she had always wanted: the set of a platinum choker with emeralds and diamonds and matching earrings and bracelet.

Blaise grinned jovially. "Draco, my man (it's always a bad sign when he calls me 'my man'. It means, he's on my case), do tell us what happens between you and Granger at work. There wouldn't be more than work, would there?"

Pansy jumped in excitedly. "Were you trying to steal her from Weasley? Not that there would be anything wrong with it, but I heard they are not dating anymore. He's been seen with Brown," she finished contemplatively.

Blaise pulled a face: "Pansy, please. Is Draco taking seconds from the Weasel now?" He shook himself. "What happened to your taste, Draco? Tell me, it's not true or I'll carry you of to St. Mungo's, right this second."

I couldn't answer. Granger was not dating the weasel anymore? Or perhaps he was cheating on her? He'd been seen with the Brown bird, Pansy said. How did Granger take that? Once a cheater, always a cheater? But she had had a date. Was that their good-bye? But why did she look so pleased the next morning? Too many questions and no way to receive answers without looking suspicious. Damn.

Before I could say anything, Mother came back in. "Draco, dear, there is a floo call for you. Ms Granger." She raised an eyebrow delicately. "She looks better than the last time I saw her."

Startled, I squirmed in my seat. If I got up and ran to her now, my friends would assume the worst. "Tell her, I'll call back later. I've got visitors."

Mother shook her head. "I already did. She said, it would not take much time and she already waited for the earliest appropriate time to floo call. She insists."

I ripped my napkin from my lap and smashed it on the table, looking at Pansy's and Blaise's smug faces. "Alright, I'm coming. Excuse me for a second, my friends. This better not take long."

"Not at all, Draco. Take your time," Pansy dismissed me indulgently.

I followed my mother out and into the Drawing room where our floo fireplace was located. Granger's head was sitting in the flames. Even though I could only see her head, I knew she would fidget and wring her hands while waiting. When she saw me coming, she couldn't wait for my mother to leave us and started to exclaim: "Oh, Draco, there you are. I am so sorry about last night, I shouldn't have…"

I stopped her with a raised hand and turned to my mother. "Mother, will you excuse us, please?" My mother inclined her head in agreement and left the Drawing room, shutting the door behind her.

I was in no mood to indulge my fidgety work partner, therefore I snarled at her. "This better be very quick, Granger, I have guests and being well-mannered, I don't like to let them wait for a call that surely could have waited for another hour."

Granger raised an eyebrow. "Well, you are not well-mannered to me at the moment. But that aside, I apologize for last night. I shouldn't have left you on the dance floor as I did. Ron confused me and given our recent history, I reacted impulsively. And that was wrong."

I was speechless. Did she really apologize to me for her rude behaviour last night? And there it was again, their recent history. They were really history?

She looked at me inquiringly and a little anxious. "Draco? Can you forgive me? I didn't mean to be rude. And I actually washed Harry's head and I believe Ginny did, too. He will call you today as well to apologize."

My eyes bulged. Potter was going to apologize as well? I mean, we Malfoys were used to people grovelling before us, but usually those were people who wanted money or power and our help with it. I'd never thought that self-righteous Gryffindors would end up apologizing to me, and for being rude to me of all reasons. Not that I'm saying they shouldn't. For once, I had been innocent last night of what they had accused me off. I had done nothing to deserve such a dressing down. But since Gryffindors started apologizing to me, did that mean that I had to start behaving better to them as well? I had to think about that.

Granger reminded me that she still waited for my reply. She looked a little smug though, when she saw what must have been incredulity written all over my face. "Shocked, Malfoy, that I am apologizing to you?

I shook myself out of my mental stupor: "Certainly, Granger, I am shocked that you Gryffindors have proper social manners."

Granger grinned in reply. "Yes, Malfoy, be as shocked as you like. I'm glad that you don't carry grudges, though."

I had to smile a little at the way she one-upped me. I tried to snarl at her, I wasn't sure that it worked, though: "If that be all, Granger, I'll see you on Monday. As you know, I have visitors."

If possible, her grin broadened. "Say 'hi' to your visitors, then. See you Monday."

And with a plop, she vanished from the fire. I stayed for another minute, trying to digest that not only had she apologized to me, she also understood how it had affected me. It warmed me a little that she felt it had been wrong to leave me on the dance floor and to actually come and outright apologize.

I guess, when I returned to Pansy and Blaise a minute later, the smile was still on my face for that reason and my "friends" jumped on it right away.

"Draco, what did she … oh, for Slytherin's sake, did she take your brain? You are smiling like an imbecile." Pansy exclaimed as soon as I entered the breakfast parlour again. I realized that I still hadn't had breakfast yet and that my stomach felt rather low. I hoped that Potter would take a little longer for his apology. I needed some omelette on my ribs first.

"Pansy, give the man some breathing space." Good old Blaise. The man knew how to treat a friend. Until his next sentence, that was. "Get something to eat, Malfoy, and then tell us your tale. We've waited long enough now and we do have other engagements today."

"Well, I'm not keeping you from them," I tried one last half-cocked attempt at elusion.

Blaise shook his head. "Don't even try, you will not escape. We are not leaving before you give us details and if that makes us late for my future in-laws, then we will be blaming you."

"Ouch," I said. I served myself from the omelette platter and stuffed my mouth and chewed while I considered what I could safely tell my friends. My work with Granger, yes. Taking photos to identify magic energy patterns to specify a pointer to particular magic, yes. My night out as colleagues, yes. Weasley's misunderstanding, yes. My dance with Granger, only without saying how much we enjoyed it and how we watched the swirling of our magic. My adjunction with her, hell no.

Seeing as my friends hung on every of my jaw movements, chewing, I offered: "My work with Granger is intense. We take photos using a particular method to identify magic energy patterns. In the end, it will help us to specify particular patterns to be able to track Death Eaters. The work is truly amazing, exciting, refreshingly new. Last night, she invited me to their night out and since we worked so diligently for months now, I decided I could risk it. In the course of the evening, she dragged me on the dance floor, we danced, Weasley misunderstood, dragged her away and Potter showed why our saviour needs a lot of social guidance. When she called just now, she apologized for leaving me as she did and announced that Potter will apologize as well. Blaise, could you pass the orange juice, please?" I tried to say as nonchalant as possible.

Judged by Blaise's face it worked and he passed the juice on autopilot. His brain was still working on the information bits I had just thrown at them. Pansy was quicker. When it came to potential gossip, she is one of a kind.

"Are you telling me that you danced with Granger last night? Hermione Granger? In front of her boyfriend?" she carefully tried to distract the pure information. She would be able to repack it later again. "Although he may not be her boyfriend anymore. Anyway, the message was clear."

I nodded. Blaise slapped my shoulder. "Bully, Draco. In front of the Weasel. Did he turn red as he usually does?"

Pansy wasn't as easily convinced. "But, Draco," she whined," Hermione Granger? What's gotten into you? I thought you were as good as engaged to Astoria."

That almost made me spit out my juice. As good as engaged?

"Where did you get that one? Not from Astoria, I hope?"

Pansy waved her hand. "Of course not, I have other sources. So, it's not true?"

"Not really, no. Not at the moment at least," I avoided a final statement. I didn't know if I wouldn't at one point be engaged to her, I was only hoping not. But keeping your options open was the Slytherin way.

"But there is nothing going on with you and Granger either?" she wanted the gossip headline of the week.

I sneered at her. "Pansy, do you really think if there was, I would tell you of all people? Only if I wanted it around the neighbourhood in half an hour." I shook my head.

"Half an hour," she scoffed. "I have you know that I can have information around the neighbourhood in less than twenty minutes." She shook her head as well and murmured again: "Half an hour, honestly."

Blaise had followed our interaction like a spectator at tennis (yes, I am aware of some muggle sports. I just don't go around boasting about it.). Now he intervened with what interested him the most: "And what about your exchange with the weasel and Saint Potter?"

I shrugged. "Well, the weasel didn't like me dancing with his girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend), big surprise, and Potter tried to save his mate's honour because that's what Potter does, saving things, especially the ones that cannot save themselves, and the weasel's honour definitely falls into that category, and as usual without having all facts beforehand, thus, the lack of social skill. But Granger was just apologizing for her imbecile of (ex-?) boyfriend and told me that Potter would as well."

Blaise and Pansy both looked like they'd won the lottery. "Potter will apologize to you for stepping on your toes?"

I looked smug. "Something like it, yes."

Blaise laughed heartily. "That's the best I've ever heard. How far can we spread that?"

My look darkened. "Not at all. This is for amusement amongst friends. It will help nobody if you spread that I have to work with imbeciles all day to make up for my father's transgressions."

Pansy smiled like the cat that got the canary, dipped in cream: "Draco, honey, what do we get if we keep this to ourselves?" A Slytherin goddess, that's what Pansy was. Too bad, I wasn't into her.

I shrugged: "I'll get you the jewellery that you always wanted, remember, the one you showed me a thousand times? If, and only if I haven't heard a peep about this from anybody else by Christmas." By Christmas, this story would be an old shoe and nobody would give it a second look, especially if I had moved on from working with Potter and his team.

Blaise didn't look too happy: "Hey, that's my fiancée you are gifting with expensive jewellery."

I patted the back of his hand. "And she'll stay that way, I promise you, my friend. I'm just buying her silence; you know how these things go."

My friends left soon after that and I received Potter another hour later to apologize for not checking his facts first and for being so rude to me, effectively confirming that Granger and the weasel had split up. I accepted his grumbled apology and I felt elated that the weasel wouldn't touch Granger with his paws anymore but I still felt miffed about the way I had been treated by them.

My plans stood: I would bide my time and then I would go my own way. As a free man.

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****

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_A/N: Alright, this was the last part of Chapter 14. I'm not entirely satisfied with it. I wrote it a long time ago and added parts 2 and 3 of the chapter fairly recently. This part was meant to bring their interaction on a physical level, and I'm not sure if I overdid it or not. I've just read and edited it so many times, I constantly find fault with it._

_Well, the best way to find out would be FOR YOU ALL TO TELL ME. _

_(I don't mean my trusted reviewers who faithfully write long reviews to tell me exactly what they liked, thanks again). _

_So, go on: TELL ME (ha, challenge: tell me in twelve words or less)_

_And I'm almost done writing. After this, there will be about five or six more installments. I've put in a lot of work recently to get it done before I start working next week. I'd hate to leave it unfinished, not only because I hate it when good stories become abandoned in the middle for whatever reasons (I'm sure, they are perfectly justified), it is so unfair to the reader, but also because it would frustrate me, personally. I __want__ to finish this._

_Best, M_


	18. Revelation

_A/N: Hm, good point, Mrs Moony. See, this is why we need reviews. I thought that Harry was so wrapped up in his "finding Death Eaters" and his life with Ginny, and Ron was seen with Lavender only once (which was enough for Pansy (and remember, Pansy wasn't sure if they had split up) and Hermione was very discreet and was not seen when going out. Besides, just because you are dating somebody, doesn't mean that you can't have dinner with anybody else ever again. Mainly, everybody was so set in their minds that Ron and Hermione are together that they didn't want to see anything else. After a war, everybody is trying to find normalcy again. So, Ron and Hermione tried to be what everybody expected them to be but when it didn't work they were too frozen in their old ways or too shocked to tell anybody. And Harry, as observant as he usually is, had his mind elsewhere. There is more explanation in this chapter. I'll see if I can weave it more into the story eventually. But not before I finish it or it'll never get done._

_And I didn't mean the twelve words for you, Mrs Moony, but for the people who put me on their favourite list or story alert (I like it, I really do, just give me a few words: "like Draco, good story, miss fight with Ron, wonder when they shag?" Soo much message.)_

_Well, we are getting closer to it._

_Thank you, Roxipp (yes, there will be, keep reading, chapter after this one), padfootsgrl179, Forbidden1991, arcticcat621, and Mrs. Moony especially for your reviews and the people who put me on their favourites list and story alerts._

**.**

**15. The revelation**

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**Hermione's POV:**

When I arrived at the Ministry on Monday morning the air was somewhat cleared. Harry had apologized over the weekend as well and Draco had grudgingly accepted.

Ron was another issue, though. He was still possessive and protective around me and it started to bother me. Not that I had any intentions toward other men at the time, and certainly not toward Draco Malfoy, but Ron's hovering around me was getting on my nerves, especially since I knew that he was seeing other woman, e.g. one Lavender Brown. Lavender couldn't help bragging when I met her the other day. Not that I minded it one bit. Ron and I had tried and decided that we weren't couple material. So, I had patted her shoulder and wished her best of luck. Lavender could have him if she wanted. But with that he had forfeited his right to act as my knight in shining armour.

And a scene like the one in the Ministry atrium this morning where he accosted Draco in the middle of a crowd just because Draco had asked for my whereabouts, was a bit much. Good thing, Harry was being docile after his fauxpas on Friday and his necessary apology to Draco over the weekend.

It was clear from Draco's behaviour when I slipped in my seat next to him that morning that he was going to be entirely professional. And nothing else. I sympathised with him. He had tried to get on our good sides only to be rebuffed time and again. I got the feeling that being rejected was becoming a constant in his life and that couldn't have felt good. No wonder he snapped at us. He couldn't know when we would pull one over on him the next time.

The operative units were going to be Seamus and Dean and Harry and Ron today. Draco and I were going back to the training. Before the weekend, and because we had been so busy last week pointing out Death Eater hide-outs, we had wanted to continue to explore why the compow had exploded on us, check references from Lovegood's book and look for Gumptious' book on Emotions. For the others, we were simply doing more research. Except for the researcher, few people know how much research you can actually do before you've finished the books. Hermione does research, that was what they knew.

I had also wanted to gauge better how the compow could help to dissolve spells put on me. The shock from the Petrificus from last week had worn off, but after my nervous breakdown and the maladroit kiss (although oh so good) I needed more assurance that I would be able to do it each and every time. And if there were more spells that could be dissolved. And what this had to do with the waving of the magic.

This was what we started with that morning because it was the most pressing matter to me, the mastery of the neutralization. Even though Malfoy claimed I had done it all by myself, I wasn't sure if I could do it again because I didn't know how I had done it the first time. And not knowing is not a good state of being for me.

So we went out on the exercise floor again and I had Malfoy put a Petrificus Totalus on me, with certain precautions.

"Okay, put it on me and when I can't resolve it in two minutes take it off again, alright?"

He rolled his eyes. "You can do it, Granger."

I shook my head nervously. "But just imagine I can't, I wouldn't want to be stuck in it forever."

"Gee, Granger, I will hardly let you starve here."

I waved my hands impatiently. "Just say, you do it, okay?"

He sighed. "Yes, Granger."

"Will you do it?"

"Are you ready?"

"No, will you do it?"

"Be ready, Granger."

"I can't be ready if you won't tell me you'll free me after two minutes again."

He furrowed his forehead and waved his wand hand impatiently. "I already said that."

"Really, because I didn't hear you."

And then he did it: "Petrificus Totalus"

He petrified me before I was ready.

.

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**Draco's POV:**

I just couldn't hear her whining anymore. I had set my plan to be professional only and it annoyed me to hell and back when she whined over something I was sure she knew. I couldn't stand her insecurities. She was know-it-all Granger, she knew everything. And I knew that she had freed herself from Reddawl's petrification because I hadn't done it. So what were all her security nets for? What, did she think I would leave her in a petrified state and go for lunch? Leave her entirely for the day and let the maintenance guys collect her? What did she think of me?

And then I realized that this would have been exactly what the Malfoy she grew up with would have done. She had no reason at all to trust me. And the way I was behaving now, professional and impersonal, was certainly no way to prove my trustworthiness.

Looking at her eyes in her petrified face, I saw the horror of being bespelled before she was ready. I sighed. I couldn't do it to her. She had done me no wrong. It hadn't been her fault that the weasel and Potter overreacted. She had even apologized for it.

I stepped up to her. "Relax, Granger. I'll free you after the two minutes. But give it your best shot. I know that you did it last week because I didn't do it. Alright?"

Her terrified eyes calmed. "Okay. Just try, drag the compow over with your magic and let it overlay the spell. It'll dissolve it."

After two minutes she was still petrified and her eyes became wild again. I raised my wand. "Okay, Granger, stay calm, I'll take it off."

With a wand movement and a "Mobilis" she was able to move again. And what did she do? She jumped me. I fell backwards with her on top of me. Fortunately, there was a bunch of pillows in the corner behind us.

"Malfoy," she spat. "How dare you? And before I was ready." Her face was tomato red with anger. She was very close to an explosion. She held my cashmere jumper tight and tried to shake me with it. I didn't resist. It was the quickest way for her to let of steam. After a few more seconds of pulling on the front of my jumper and squeaking and grunting in fury, she sagged forward on my chest, forehead first, and heaved a huge exhale. I looked down at her gleaming bush of healthy hair and put a hand on it. It was soft, just like she had said. Being so tightly curled, I had always assumed it felt rough like shaved wood. Even when I held her one curl I didn't get the right feel for it. But it was soft as a down feather.

"I was sure you could do it, Granger. I still am. You immobilized yourself with your terror," I tried to soothe her, stroking her hair. "It is yours to take, the compow, the power, well, ours, yours and mine. You just have to take it. It'll come with you when you just grab it."

She laid her head to the side so that her cheek now laid on my chest and my hand on her other cheek. Touching her face was too intimate. I moved my hand down to her shoulder.

"So, you broke up with the weasel, hm?" I asked what I died to know from her mouth and to distract her from her terror.

She sighed. "What makes you say that?"

"You said in your apology something about your history. And Potter might have implied it in his apology." And the weasel had been seen with another woman on the town, I thought to myself. If he cheated on you, I would break his jaw. That would make my day.

She chortled. "It could have been something about our relationship history."

Damn. I was on thin ice here. Did I get that wrong? But no, he had been seen with Brown. "He has been seen with Brown. He's not cheating on you, is he?" The prick, I didn't say.

Her body started shaking. Oh, Merlin, I hoped to whoever was holy up there that she wasn't crying. But when she raised her head to look at me I saw the wrinkles around her eyes from mirth. Puh, close call.

"You would know that, wouldn't you? Are you the king of blackmail? Who gets you all your information? And what was that about Michael Corner that you knew?" She snickered.

I reined my face in and replied in a very stately fashion: "A gentleman never discloses his sources. And Corner has been seen in certain clubs that are known for their preferred use of multiple colours."

She still grinned and shook her head, the information just sinking in. Then it hit her and her face fell. "Oh. Oh! But he was dating Ginny once."

"And now he is dating Malcolm. Or Thomas. Or whatever his name is." I quietly added. I was getting used to her lying on my stomach. It wasn't a bad feeling at all. It warmed certain areas as well. Oh! Time to move her then.

"Granger, I'm not saying you are fat …"

"Oh, of course. Sorry, Malfoy." She lifted her body up and moved next to me on the pillows. I missed the warmth on a certain area but it would have had particular effects if she had stayed any longer. And that was taking things too far. I might have recently discovered that she was a sensual woman but she was still Granger. I turned to my side to face her when she spoke.

"But to answer your question, no, Ron is not cheating on me. We did break up a few weeks ago. He is free to go out with whoever he likes. It's perfectly fine."

I observed her face to see if she was lying, either to herself or me, but even though she was not meeting my eyes, there was nothing. She was really fine.

"Then why did he take you home Friday night? And objected to you dancing?"

She glanced at me. "He didn't object to me dancing. I believe he didn't like me dancing with you, of all people. It's still fresh, our break-up. And having been best friends for so long before that and now again, it's hard to turn off possessiveness or protectiveness for someone you care about. And Ron cares about me. As a best friend. Just not as a lo…"

I interrupted her before she started spilling her entire love life with the weasel. I really didn't want to know that. "Granger, as much as I hate interrupting what surely would have been an interesting story, I really don't need to know more about the weasel."

She turned on her back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Okay. But his name is Ron."

"I don't even call my own friends by their first name, I will not start with a mustelidae."

She grinned at me. I think she liked the fact that I knew the official name for weasels and that they were not actually rodents. Warm. It felt warm. And for a Slytherin, warm is hard to come by. "At least call him "Weasley". You call Harry "Potter"."

"That's his name, isn't it?" I snarled.

She inclined her head. "Yes, and Weasley is Ron's name."

I sighed. "I'll try, Granger. I can't promise you anything."

She sighed as well, turning back to look at the ceiling: "Fair enough."

Looking at her sideways, and up close, I became aware of how her breath huffed between her rosy lips, drying them, so that they didn't shine anymore. They still looked soft like rose petals but after a few puffs she must have felt her lips dry and pulled the lower one in to moisten it, then smoothed her tongue over the upper lip. Observing her movements made me think of the hapless kiss last week and how she had responded none the less. I still didn't know why I'd done it. She was shaking in a nervous breakdown and all I could think of was to kiss her? Her enragement afterwards was not unfounded. It would have been more like me to slap her, if only as revenge for the slap in third year. But I don't hit girls. I might be a coward but I don't hit girls. Well, slaps to certain areas are different, but not in the face. That's just wrong.

I'd spent all afternoon after I'd gotten home instead of going to St. Mungo's to think why I'd done it. I took out my broom to soar through the icy skies over the Manor and its lands. But by nightfall, windswept and frozen to the handle, I still hadn't figured it out. Every time I felt I got closer to the reason, the memory of the feeling of her lips responding to mine had pushed itself in between and I'd lost my track of thought. Damn, Malfoy, what's wrong with you, I scolded myself.

I had remembered the feel of her lips on mine, her sweet taste. The night before Dumbledore's death I had kissed her out of desperation. That night, I thought this was the last humane thing I would ever do. I had given up. I still tried to save my mother but I didn't have much hope of succeeding. Until she pulled me back. Until she reminded me that I was connected with a sizzle in the air. She reminded me that I wasn't alone, and that she was going to fight for what she believed to be right: the freedom of the Wizarding world. A beacon of light. I didn't believe in melodramatic crap like a hope carrier, a beacon of light and some such nonsense. Until Granger showed me, that there really was light at the end of the tunnel if you only looked for it. If you mustered your reserves, if you dug deep down into your strength and dragged up the last bit of it. If you died fighting. Because nothing makes you feel worse than giving up on yourself. Thinking back, she was with me in the darkest hours of my life, one way or another.

I shook myself out of my reminiscence. Before we became too cosy down here on the pillows and I too aware of too much more, I got up.

"Before we fall asleep on the floor, are you ready for another go, Granger?"

She in- and exhaled once mindfully. "I suppose," she said and pushed herself up from the pile of pillows.

"Alright, remember, just pull the compow over to it," I reminded her when she stood in front of me. "It's very easy. Don't panic."

"Yes, yes," she grumbled. "Get on with it."

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"Petrificus totalus."

I dived in after her. I wanted to see what she was doing. What she hadn't done the last time she couldn't free herself. If she could do it now. As long as I stayed out of sight, so to say, … .

"Malfoy, get out. I need to do this alone." Her magic tapped into mine, like a slap on the shoulder, and although she couldn't say anything out loud, this was how it felt.

Busted. I retreated but I couldn't help stirring the compow with my (magical) movement. As soon as it started to move it went automatically for the intrusive magic, the one that didn't belong on her, overlaid and dissolved it. Granger was free to move again.

"Arrgh, why did you come in? Now, I have to try again." She scolded with a furrowed forehead. It looked positively cute.

I snapped back: "Granger, it's not like you wouldn't have done it again even if you had been entirely successful, now. What's one more dry run?"

"But that's exactly what I was talking about. You pulled it up to use on Reddawl when my Petrificus dissolved. You did do something, then. I didn't do it alone."

"But one thing has nothing to do with the other. I pulled the compow for myself before and this time I pulled it from you. You should still be able to do it yourself. I mean, you are a part of it. You are one of the creators. You have to have full access. You are just too scared to use it. Where's your Gryffindor courage, princess?"

She seethed. "Do it again. Put it on me again. And don't you dare come in and move it, intentionally or not. I want to manage this on my own. Don't take it off before you see me panicking, okay?"

I was livid. That's what I had been saying all along. And now she bitched about the same thing as if it was my fault. I didn't wait for her to say she was ready, this time. Her blazing eyes were sign enough.

"Petrificus Totalus."

Even though I was angry I still watched her eyes for signs of panic. But there was none. Only smouldering fury. Determination. It was so strong I felt the rough edges on my magic, from here, from the outside, and even though our two magical fields do not actually touch. The compow prevented that. Maybe she was using it and the barrier was gone? I was dying of curiosity up here. What was she doing?

And then I felt it. A crackle. On my magic. Like a minimal electrical discharge. Like a crackle of a fire starting again from the embers, licking on my magical barrier, slicing it open (oh, yeah, I remembered that feeling). I felt her invading my magic, as if she had opened my chest and gripped into my ribcage. I was paralysed in shock but I was still able to see the triumph in her eyes as she overtook me. My magic. And me. Which is one and the same. Opposite of the way she swallowed my magic the night of the adjunction when my magic had flooded over her, this time she impaled me. Metaphorically speaking. Energetically speaking.

I couldn't let her. I wouldn't let her get one over me. After the second of shock, I jumped into action. Where was the compow? I had been able to handle it before her, it was mine, my power. Where was it? I dove in and saw the compow intermingled with her magic. She had mixed it with hers. She had not only dragged it over to the foreign magic of the Petrificus (which was long gone, we were just too shocked to move), she had taken it in and mixed it with hers. Oh, no, Granger, you didn't. You will not take sole advantage of our power. It was mine as well. I jumped in (energetically speaking) and tried to wrangle it from her, uniting all three magical fields in one.

The resulting crackling was ear shattering. I wasn't sure what a person next to us could have actually seen or if the crackling of the energy fields could actually be heard outside of us. But inside, where we were struggling for the upper hand over the compow, it sounded like a battlefield. I felt tempted to cover my ears but I needed my hands, so to say. So I clenched my teeth to numb my ears and tried to hold Granger's magic down, the same way I had held her down right before the explosion. The explosion. If we struggled like this, would it come to an explosion again?

Before I could come to a decision whether to stop or to risk it, I felt Granger's magic slide over mine, like a snake over a rock in the sun, lazily. I stilled for a moment and enjoyed the feeling. She had let go of the compow and tested the fact that our two magical fields could actually be in contact. I let go of the compow likewise and despite the continued crackling in the air slid my magic over hers, like two dolphins in the water, around and around. She peeked forward to dip in mine and I snaked around to dip in hers. And turning, turning. I've never been on a fair ride in my life but I heard it's similar to the exhilaration of diving on a broom; the sinking feeling in your stomach when you fall, the shortness of breath and the exploding joy when you pull it up again. This is what this felt like. I knew Granger didn't like flying, and she never had an aptitude to handle a broom but I could imagine if I explained to her that this was the feeling, she would go. Skydiving on a broom. With me.

I must have closed my eyes standing there, when I was supposed to watch over her to free her of the petrification before she panicked, but the sensation of magically skydiving with her had me in its throws. I remembered where I was when I felt her hand on my cheek and opened my eyes to look in her warmly smiling face, mirth wrinkling the corners of her eyes again.

I still couldn't breathe.

And then Potter's Patronus came charging in.

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**Hermione's POV:**

I have to say, gambolling around with Draco's magic had been the most (joyfully) exciting thing I had done in a long time. The smile on my face from the joy felt exceptionally good and seeing that Draco had enjoyed it as well, … .

But it took us only a second to come back to reality when Harry's stag Patronus charged right in. "Need help, come now" it yelled with Harry's voice. I saw Draco's eyes morphing from a soft velvety charcoal grey to rock hard granite and one look at his shocked face confirmed that this was real. I jumped in fright and grabbing his hand and our wands, following the magical path of the Patronus, which moved on to call the aurors, we apparated into the middle of a raging battle.

Draco moved into a defensive crouch immediately, which put him a little in front of me and acted as protection against the flying curses, unintentionally, I was certain, and I stuck my wand arm right over his shoulder to throw out a shield charm over our bodies. One swivel of the head confirmed that Harry, Ron, Seamus and Dean were back to back but surrounded by six Death Eaters who were shooting curses at them as if they wanted to smash the young men in their midst. Which is likely what they wanted. We stood outside the circle of attackers and surrounded fighters, which gave us a strategic advantage.

I didn't need to say anything. I felt the shield charm forming in Draco. Being so intimately connected as we had just been minutes ago, left traces in our magic. I still felt the intrusion from his magic in mine. It felt like an imprint left behind. And for that reason I could feel the movements of his magic in mine. Like I was reading his thoughts but was reading his magic. And you have to understand we are talking split seconds here.

He started the wand movement for the Shield charm, aimed right in the middle of the fighting gaggle. I put my hand on his back and moved to his right to have a better aim. I felt the 'Protego' flow through him. I cannot tell you how, but I knew because my magic flowed the same way. His shield charm was so strong, it almost glowed.

And it didn't matter that there had been a misunderstanding just a few days ago. That our work this morning had been awkward and explosive. Our magic connected like we had worked it out, like it belonged together, like it was better off whole.

I left it to him to protect the four friends in the middle, and threw out a stunner over the right hand men that were fighting Ron and Dean and felt part of the magic coming from Draco. This time, I didn't even stop to think if I could do it or not. I pulled on the compow for the extra power, like I had never done anything else. The stunner was strong enough to fell all three grown men in one swoop. Draco moved on from the Protego to a stunner on his own for his left hand side.

It was a big jumble of magic flowing around but somehow I was aware of Draco's magic flowing. My three stunned Death Eaters fell forward being likewise hit by the defensive spells from Ron and Dean, who stood to the right. At the same time I felt the Stunner magic flow to the left, directed by Draco. One second later, the left three Death Eaters fell forward in one swoop, as well. Draco and I without thinking, without having to communicate in any way, send an 'Incarcerous' to the left and right, followed by an 'Expelliarmus', respectively, and the Death Eaters were finished. About twenty seconds after we had arrived.

The following silence was ear shattering. Well, silence that is, except for the crackling that came from around Draco and me. I looked to my left into Draco's storm-grey eyes and saw blue and purple and red energy waves crackling and twirling and waving around his blond head, making his hair stand on end. He looked ethereal, almost demonic, like an Archangel come to punish with his stern face. I smiled, reached up and smoothed his hair down and then took his free right hand. His eyes and facial features softened somewhat and he exhaled with a nod of his head.

"Hermione" I heard from the front in Harry's voice. We both looked to the other men in our company and saw them almost afraid. I took a step forward pulling Draco's hand with me and my friends moved a step back, moving into a line confronting me, that is, us.

"Harry" I said, reaching out my wand hand. "I'm so glad we came in time."

Nobody spoke. They kept looking at us as if they had never seen us before.

"Harry, are you alright?" I asked suspiciously. They were behaving very oddly.

"Ron? Seamus? Dean? What's wrong?"

"Hermione, when did we go to the Graveyard of Godric's Hollow and what did we find?" Harry asked monotonously.

I rolled my eyes. "We went on Christmas Eve last year and we found the grave of Ignatius Peverell which gave us a hint to the story of the three brothers and with the help of my book from Dumbledore's inheritance we figured our way to the Elder Wand." Draco next to me snorted. Harry sighed with relief.

"It's her, alright."

Ron looked wildly around him. "And is that the real Malfoy next to her? And what the fuck did they just do?"

I blew up my cheeks in exasperation and puffed out the air. "Yes, that is Draco Malfoy. You called us, remember? And good thing you did, it didn't look like you had the situation entirely under control, honestly."

Dean spoke for the first time. "But, Hermione, what spells. You should have seen yourself. Not only did you stun three grown men at once, you and Malfoy each, …"

"And a Shield charm before that," Draco snarled between.

Dean nodded. "Thank you, and a 'Protego' on top, but you two crackle with unreleased energy. Like a static carpet. It looks kind of spooky."

Seamus nodded in agreement: "Yea, mate, what a show."

Harry crossed his arms. "Pretty colours, though."

Ron, eager to say something, went with it: "Yeah, look, red and blue and…" Harry's piercing glance silenced him.

I was stunned and looked over to Draco. He smirked and nodded.

"Is it true? Do I crackle as well? I thought it was just you," I questioned.

Draco chuckled in response. "Oh yeah, and why would that be? Because I am so much more powerful than you? Remember, Granger, equal magical strength."

"Sssshhh," I hissed. But too late. Harry had heard it. His head snapped around and his gaze penetrated us. "What was that?"

I smiled uncertainly. "Nothing, Harry. Just an insider joke between Draco and I."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, Granger. The game is up. We might as well tell them. Maybe they can help us find out why the fuck it happened in the first place."

Ron narrowed his eyes. I could see him thinking, Malfoy and Hermione in a game together? That had better be good. "Tell us what?" he asked menacing.

I was very nervous. I would have liked a different setting for disclosing our secret. A propos setting: "I think, we should dispose of them first and then we can have a talk."

Draco nodded. "That's a good idea."

Harry agreed. "Will I finally find out what goes on between you and Malfoy?"

I sighed. "I suppose."

Harry nodded. "Alright, then, let's get to it."

.

****

.

**Still Hermione's POV**

Half an hour later, we had passed off the bound Death Eaters to the aurors who came about a minute after us and were more than surprised that they had come too late, and debriefed our mission, skipping the parts where Draco and I stunned three in one spell. Harry took us aside and told us in no uncertain terms that we were to meet at his house in ten minutes. I nodded sheepishly but then turned back to my desk to sit down for a minute.

Draco came a minute later and sat across from me.

"What's wrong, Granger?" I buried my face in my hands and squeaked: "This is it. How will they react?" I heard him moving but kept my face covered.

"We'll find out, won't we?" I heard his voice right next to me. He gripped my wrists and pulled me out of my chair to his chest, moving my hands away from my face. I looked in his slate greys that just now reminded me of a granite rock, ancient, durable, resistant, and imperturbable for centuries.

I slowly came to realize that Draco Malfoy was the kind of man that you wanted next to you when your plane goes down; when you are in a hurry and stuck in traffic and passing an accident with injured people. Or when you are in a bank that is being robbed. Not Ron who would have a fit, tearing his hair about the injustice in life. Not Harry who would be off to save some minors or innocents or damsels in distress, feeling guilty that he put you in the situation in the first place.

No, you would want Draco Malfoy with you, who would stay very focused and by saving himself would make sure that you came out unscathed as well; who would protect you if you were with him and let others care for other distressed people; who would put his arm around you and drag you with him, rub your shoulders and try to calm you with breathing and speaking quietly so you wouldn't panic and lose focus, if you were important to him. Not that I was important to him and you wouldn't know from his behaviour when we were students at Hogwarts but that's because all we ever did was throw insults at each other. He used to be prone to save himself first, but he had grown up and I suppose the war taught him that you had to think beyond your own comfort at times. If only he wasn't Draco Malfoy. I realized that, as I stood there shaking in freight over the reaction of my friends to the fact that I, a muggleborn, were of equal magical strength as Draco Malfoy, heir of a millennium old Wizard family. And that therefore, we were somehow magically connected. And that we weren't quite sure how it happened. But there were witnesses when it had happened. Four of them, two of them dead by now.

Draco did rub my shoulders. He rubbed my shoulders and back and murmured into my hair until I calmed enough to stop shaking. I breathed in his scent of citrus and leather and something male that was Draco and realized that I had missed that smell, if only for the short period since I had last been aware of it.

Finally, he lifted my chin with one hand and looked in my face. "Better?"

I nodded. I cleared my throat and said: "I just remembered that we actually have witnesses. McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey are both alive and Professor Dumbledore and Snape will be available in their portraits as former headmasters of Hogwarts and can confirm that nothing fishy has gone on. And it's not like we intended to be connected. It just happened."

"That's right." He said in a quiet voice. "And they are your friends. And I never intended to hurt you with any of this, you know that, right? I never intended to hurt you ever since that first night in the classroom." He couldn't hold my gaze anymore. I pulled his face back to look at me.

"Did I help you that first night?"

He jerked his face out of my hold and looked at the wall. "You did."

"How?" I breathed.

"You gave me something," he mumbled.

I nodded quietly. I knew what. Compassion. I took his face back with both hands and made him look at me again. "You're welcome."

He held my gaze for half a minute and I could see the emotional turmoil in his eyes, swirling grey, then he nodded once and moved out of my hold again.

He took my hand though and said soberly: "Let's go tell your friends what happened in the hospital wing in sixth year."

.

****

.

Draco didn't let go of Hermione's hand until they sat down on the couch in the Drawing room at Grimmauld Place where Dean, Seamus, Ron, Harry and Ginny were already waiting. He switched hands at times, walking behind or beside her as the space available allowed, with his hand on her back or not, but he never let go until they sat in the safety of the sofa where Hermione faced her friends.

Hermione took one deep breath and started to tell what happened in sixth year. How she had found Draco in an empty classroom, desperate because of the pressure of his task. How she had been so upset, after Harry injured him, that she had to go to the hospital wing in the middle of the night to see Draco for herself. How their magic had clashed and adjuncted and how Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, Snape and McGonagall had been there to witness it. That nobody knew exactly how it had happened and what it would do. And that they were only now finding out, that it had quadrupled their power when fighting together and that they didn't know exactly what else so far. She left out the few encounters they had had in sixth year, when he had comforted her because of Ron's straying and Draco's warning and the kiss. That was between her and Draco. He didn't interrupt her and didn't add to her telling. He only made supporting noises and nodded his head at times.

At one point during Hermione's story, Harry's face darkened but he let her continue to finish.

When she was done, silence ensued, finally interrupted by Harry asking: "So, you did betray me, you knew he was up to something?" Hermione gasped. The nerve of him.

Draco jumped in with a snide remark before she could say a word: "Potter, she didn't know what I had to do, only that they would kill my mother if I didn't do it. She protected me as much as Dumbledore and Snape protected me, from being chased down and murdered by Voldemort." Ron, Seamus, and Dean cringed at hearing the name, whereas Ginny remained stoic. Draco continued: "You told me, Dumbledore knew all the time but you don't hold him responsible."

"I did at one point in time." Harry said quietly, even though the anger hadn't subsided.

Draco sneered. "Beg pardon?"

Harry explained forcefully: "He kept everything secret. I warned him repeatedly that you were going to do something and he brushed me off. I was beside myself."

Draco still sneered: "And then you matured and realized that he had a reason not to tell you, to protect an underage student from imminent doom."

Harry ignored him and turned to Hermione again: "Why did you visit him at night in the hospital wing? "

Hermione was already enraged because Harry had accused her. She had expected they wouldn't take it in stride, but accusations she didn't deserve. She attacked him vehemently: "Because you sliced him open with something from that stupid book that I had warned you against thousands of times before. Something for an enemy, something that had been used on ME in the Department of Mysteries at the end of fifth year." At that Draco cringed and looked at Hermione in horror. She looked straight at Harry, knowing that he was the most important person to convince and stormed on: "He was a pawn," she pointed her finger toward Draco, who lowered his head at that, "just as much as we were, only he didn't have the option of going into the arena with his head held high, like you, like I, like we all did. And you know that makes all the difference," she hissed the last sentence.

Harry stared at her for a moment, took in her righteous anger and then lowered his head. "Sorry, Hermione."

"Damn right, you should be sorry." She blustered but went to embrace him.

Draco wasn't looking at them. He was locking gazes with Ron who stared at him hatefully. And Draco felt like laughing out loud. The Weasel had had this amazing woman, this all-encompassing powerful woman, this grand woman who had all the power to punish you very painfully without a scratch to her and was constantly forgiving you in her great heart and he couldn't make it as her lover. He rather went for Brown, the slut. Well, Draco was quite sure that Brown knew how to moan and pretend to her man, how good he was. He was acquainted with a man or two who had been in that position. But he personally preferred his women really enjoying what he had to give them. Draco couldn't believe the stupidity of the weasel. He snorted.

"Got a problem, Weasel?"

"Many, ferret, but one is you." Harry and Hermione turned from their embrace. "Pardon me?"

Ron jumped up. "He's hurt Hermione again and you embrace and make up and he grins triumphantly and nobody pays any attention to him."

Hermione spoke calmly: "Ron, he isn't and he wasn't hurting me. He hasn't called me the M-word since sixth year. He has protected me in fights numerous times."

"Oh, and does he tug you in at night, too? Is he as good in bed as all the other sluts say?"

"Ron" Hermione raged.

But Draco had gotten up and stood in front of Ron. He was only about half an inch shorter, so they were somewhat matched in height. But what a difference, when you saw them face to face. Where Ron was tall and gangly, Draco was tall and slim; where Ron looked like a stork on gangly legs able to weather a storm, Draco looked like a viper, ready to strike, deadly poisonous.

Matching the image he hissed: "It's alright, Granger. I'll go. Again. I'll leave it to you to explain to your friends fully. I know you can take care of yourself or I would stay to help you. Let my parting words be to you, Weasel, that if **I** ever had a powerful and com … passionate woman like Granger, I would never ever let her go. I figure that you need a bigger … brain to understand what you lost there. And I wonder which slut informed you of my performances in the bedroom. Because believe me, we don't share the same taste. Whoever says so, is lying crudely."

Ignoring Ron's quickly reddening face, he turned to the door. "Potter, thanks, I can see myself out. I remember the layout of the house from my visits as a child. Gentlemen, Ginny," he jerked his head toward Dean and Seamus and Ginny looking dumbstruck at the whole situation.

At the door, he turned back one more time to the stunned crowd watching him go. "Potter, if anybody in this room hurts her, I'll hold you personally responsible. She has done nothing wrong. Hermione," he put emphasis on her first name, "always has the best interest for others in mind." And with one last intensive look at Hermione he left, slamming the door behind him. They heard the front door slam half a minute later and then all was quiet except for the breathing of the people in the room and the bristling of one Hermione Granger.

Hermione was ready to behead Ron Weasley. She turned to him, foaming at the mouth. He gulped when he saw her seething, suddenly remembering just how proficient in magic Hermione was. She took one step in his direction, he took one back from her.

Harry chuckled. "Well, Ron, I'll leave you to it. Care to repeat what you just said to Hermione?"

Ginny went to Harry and grinned devilishly. "We take shelter in the kitchen, underground. Hermione, don't do anything that can't be repaired or cleaned up."

Dean and Seamus jumped up hurriedly and followed Harry and Ginny out of the room, but not before they heard Hermione growl. They quickly closed the door behind them and proceeded down a flight of stairs.

They came upon Harry and Ginny laughing in the kitchen. Before they could close the kitchen door, they heard a high-pitched, clearly male scream from upstairs and the lashing of magic shattering glass. Seamus chuckled and Dean shook his head and finally closed the door and shut them out.

"When will Ron learn to watch his mouth?" Harry chuckled as well.

Ginny shook her head, still grinning. "I take a guess at 'never', if Hermione finishes him off today."

Another scream and rumbling of furniture could be heard from above. Everybody in the kitchen sniggered. They knew that Hermione would make him shit his pants but not injure him seriously.

The three friends settled at the kitchen table, each a steaming tea mug in hand. Ginny, like her mother's daughter, put cream and sugar on the table and sat down herself.

Dean voiced what they all were thinking: "Honestly, what do you think of Malfoy and their tale?"

Seamus piped up: "Sounds very dubious to me. But there is something between them and I can imagine that it's magical."

Harry mused: "Equal magical strength. I never heard of it before."

Ginny laughed: "Oh, I heard about it, alright. Aunt Muriel told us about cases where people have equal power. They constantly quarrel with each other because the magic has no outlet. Magic flows, you know, from stronger to weaker carrier and when they are equally strong, it clashes, making them argue all the time. And when it ignites it can come to an adjunction. This is the stuff of legends because it is passed on from generation to generation but never experienced really."

Dean threw in: "Well, arguing they do enough, I'd say. I've never seen two so explosively go at each other's throat. In muggle-ism one would say like an old couple."

Harry snorted. "That's right. They are like two opposite magnetic poles, always dancing around each other and lashing out."

"Maybe they should just jumped each other's bones for once and let it out," Seamus deliberated.

Ginny sneered disgustedly: "What, you think it's UST that has them fighting like cats and dogs all the time?"

Seamus shrugged. "Why not? She's not to my taste but you know? To each their own and so on."

"Oi, Seamus, that's my best friend you're sexually discriminating there." Harry growled.

Seamus shrugged and grinned. "Just saying that she's not my cup of tea. Too brainy. And I like them more meaty. But I love Hermione like I love my sisters. But take a look at the birds Malfoy usually takes out. She just doesn't fall in the same category, is all. So, I wonder what that is with them."

Ginny scowled: "You take that back, Finnegan."

Dean snorted: "You have to admit that Hermione is just not the same calibre as Parkinson or the Greengrasses or the Patil twins. Heck, you are prettier than she is, Ginny."

Harry grumbled but nodded. Seamus gave his mate a slap on the shoulder in agreement. Ginny sighed. She was flattered that the men thought her prettier than Hermione but they had the wrong end of the stick. She shook her head.

"I think you are seeing her wrong. Remember how she looked for the Yule ball? And that was in fourth year, well, my third year. Imagine how she would look if she would just put a little colour on her face now. I helped her get ready for a date a few weeks ago and I can only say, stunning. If she puts her mind to it, she looks better than both Patil twins tied together."

The men didn't give up. "But look at the women Malfoy goes out with. He can pick the best of the best because of his money and name. And he doesn't look like the scrawny git he was in first year anymore. I could imagine that women fall over themselves to get to him. What would he want with Hermione?" Harry pondered shaking his head in disbelief. "He would just hurt and discard her. And I can't let that happen."

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you can't let that happen? And what about what Hermione wants? Maybe she wants somebody like Malfoy. I know he is my brother, but a guy like RON was certainly not right for her. I'll never understand what she saw in him, even though she told me in detail." Ginny shook her head.

"I know what," Harry admonished his girlfriend. "But perhaps that is not enough to build a relationship on it," he amended.

Ginny looked at the amazing emerald green eyes of the love of her life and felt humbled. She gave in. "You're right, Harry. I just wanted to say that Hermione needs to pick for herself who is good for her, and don't underestimate her. Just because she's always been best mate with you boys and hides behind her books and her brain doesn't mean that she isn't a girl in there. And she can be beautiful if she wants to be. SOMEBODY just needs to tell her that. And it has to be a guy. And my brother was not the right man."

Just then another scream could be heard from upstairs, underlining Ginny's point. She sighed again, setting her chin on her hand.

Dean quietly remarked: "What about Ron and Malfoy? They hackle each other constantly. Do you think they have equal magical strength as well?"

Ginny shook her head. "Can you see Ron being as disciplined and magically powerful as Malfoy?"

A common headshake went around the table. "I love my brother, I really do, but I think he and Malfoy just fought like guys fight, stepping on each other's toes, dragging up what bothered the other the most." And maybe over possession of Hermione, she added in her thoughts.

Harry sighed and stretched his legs. They heard Hermione come down the stairs in a quick staccato of footfalls and call a hurried "Bye, guys" from the hallway before the front door slammed. "Bye, Hermione" they all called out to where Hermione had been seconds before. In another five minutes he would have to go and see the pile Hermione had left of Ron. He owed his mate that much. "But I can certainly see Hermione being as equally strong as Malfoy. Heck, I'm surprised that he is as strong as she is. Old standing wizarding family, my foot, I didn't think he was that strong. Because let's face it, we all agree that Hermione is exceptionally strong in magic, isn't she?"

Everybody nodded.

Dean insisted to keep the focus on the magic. "Has anybody heard of what an adjunction can do, then? I've never heard of such a thing, but then, you know, I was also raised in the muggle world."

But even Ginny and Seamus shook their heads.

Seamus said: "In Ireland, there are stories of a maiden and a wizard warrior who adjuncted and fought and tamed dragons together afterward. But it's just a fire side story and everybody tells it differently. It's just such a thing to make up."

Ginny added: "I've heard of exceptional cooking skills but that's hardly stuff to make stories about."

Harry grinned at her: "So, you think your mum is adjuncted as well and she cooks so well for that reason?" He shoved against her shoulder. "Can she pass that on to her children?"

She slapped his shoulder. "My mum is not adjuncted and just spent an exceptional amount of time in the kitchen to learn cooking. And if she shows me a trick or two, I will too. Good enough for you?"

Harry kissed her on the nose. "We'll see."

Dean made a point of looking elsewhere. He wouldn't envy the saviour of the world his girlfriend. And he and Ginny had been over a long time ago. But that didn't mean he could look at them kissing.

Seamus caught his friend's discomfort and took charge. "Well, we better get going. Harry, do you need us to tidy up with you?"

But Harry just waved his hand. "That's what magic is for, isn't it?"

Seamus grinned. "Right. We'll see you tomorrow then. Thanks for the tea." He grabbed Dean and pulled him out the door with him.

.

After the men had left, Ginny and Harry went to tidy up after Hermione's fury. Where Hermione had left, Ron had stayed a frightened ball of human limbs in a corner in the drawing room, too tired or too ashamed to get up and show his face. But he wasn't seriously injured. He had a slash on his forehead from a shard of glass from the window flying by him and a bruise on his thigh where an armchair had turned over and landed on. Ginny waved her wand perfunctorily over his body to heal his marks and Harry did one sweep of the room and everything was back to normal.

They led Ron down to the kitchen and put a cup of tea in front of him. Then they watched him sip his tea and how the colour came slowly back into his pale face.

"Honestly, Ron, you should know better. Why did you attack her?" Harry finally posed the question to his best mate. Ginny watched her brother with a measure of uncertainty.

"Well, as you've seen, she attacked me." Ron growled into his cup.

Harry shook his head. "That was after. You know what I mean."

Ron still didn't look at them. He kept his glance focused on the teacup in his hands. "I just can't stand seeing her with Malfoy. Did you see that they came in holding hands?"

Harry shook his head in confusion. "I thought you two broke up."

Ron nodded but didn't say anything.

"Why did you break up again?"

Ron looked over at the wall. "We just didn't work as a couple. She expected things … You know how Hermione is, constantly nagging, wanting me to do this, do that. I couldn't stand it anymore."

Ginny looked at her brother with narrowed eyes. She didn't have a lie detector like Harry. But she knew her brother. And he was not even close to the truth.

"What makes it so different with Lavender?" she asked carefully.

Ron grinned balefully. "Lavender gives me things, she pleases me; she wants to please me."

Ginny inhaled for composure and raised her eyebrows. "You are talking sex, aren't you, Ron? Do you actually listen to yourself? Are you comparing Lavender who's been around the block a few times to Hermione who was a virgin when she slept with you for the first time?"

Ron flinched. "Yeah, well, Lavender knows how to please a guy and Hermione doesn't. She was actually rather unresponsive when we were together and Lavender knows how to make it fun. You can't blame a guy for wanting to have fun and pleasure."

Harry was turning a little green around the gills. "Could we please not discuss Hermione's sexual performances? It makes me feel a little off."

Ginny's jaw had dropped at her brother's last words, all composure gone. Hermione had been right. She wasn't surprised about that but where Hermione had actually made excuses for him and saw the good in some of his behaviours, Ginny was seething over his nerve. Ron wanted everything served to him on a silver platter because he felt he was always coming in short.

"You know, Ron, you cannot walk around thinking you deserve everything. Being Harry's best friend doesn't make you deserving of anything. Sometimes you have to work for what you want and you have to give something back," she snarled at her brother.

"Ginny, leave me out of this." Harry said.

"Oh, yeah? Says who?" Ron protested his sister's admonition.

"I say so. Did you actually ever try to please Hermione or did you just wonder why she couldn't make you come like a common whore?"

"Ginny" Harry hissed.

Ron saw red. "Are you calling Lavender a whore?"

But Ginevra was a Weasley just like he was. She knew how to hold her own against blustering older brothers. "I'm not calling Lavender anything. But I'm wondering about your standards in women, Ronald Bilius Weasley."

Ron glared at his sister. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Harry still looked a little sick but couldn't hold back. "What your sister is wondering about, Ron, is whether you prefer a woman who can suck dick over a woman who can challenge you in other areas in life." He couldn't look at his best mate when explaining this, so he put his face in his hands. "And so do I actually."

Ron looked at them as if they had asked him if he'd prefer if the sun came up again tomorrow morning. Or whether he preferred Voldemort dead or alive. Duh.

Harry gave him five seconds to answer. Even Ron could do five seconds. Three- two-one. Harry sagged to the table and groaned: "Ron." Ginny laughed shrilly over Harry's antics. Her usual tinkling laughter suffered a bit from the awareness where her brother's priorities laid.

Harry continued groaning: "No wonder, she's going for Malfoy. He's bound to be able to show her a thing or two." Ginny moaned: "Oh, yes." Whereupon Harry looked at her sceptically: "Hey, you are off the market. You are not even allowed to think about what exactly Malfoy could possibly show Hermione."

Ginny grinned: "Is that so, Mr Saviour of the Wizarding World?"

He gripped around her waist and pulled her tight: "Oh, yes," he growled.

"Hey," Ron intervened. "That's my sister you're groping there."

Ginny looked over at her brother with incredulity. "Ron, I believe you've thoroughly forfeited all rights to ever call anyone of our group to restrain him- or herself sexually. We are all grown-ups and if we want to snog each other, so we will, whether you're present or not. Harry is my man and I will snog him as much as I like. And so will Hermione. If I ever see or hear or hear about you saying anything to Hermione, with regards to who she keeps company with, ever again, I'm setting mum on you and your little girlfriend, is that understood?"

Ron gulped. Molly Weasley still believed that he was dating Hermione and she was soo proud that she would have Hermione as a daughter-in-law not too far in the future. Harry grinned at his girlfriend. He couldn't wait to be rid of his blog headed best mate. If Ginny was in a fighting mood, he was well advised to clear everybody else out of the house.

Ron couldn't leave without a parting shot: "I wonder what Malfoy wants from Hermione, though, you think? Maybe he is something like a project to her, you know? Remember those house elves? Perhaps he'll come in one day wearing woollen hats, do you reckon? Ha, Hermione can have her little projects. I don't mind at all."

"Hmhm, Ron" Harry nodded and turned to Ginny to dug his nose into her hair right below her ear. She sighed blissfully.

Ron became a bit flustered. "By the way, I've got to go, I have, .. Lavender will, … bye, Harry, Ginny."

"Bye, Ron," Harry and Ginny mumbled through attached lips. And Ronald Weasley fled from the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmauld Place like Fluffy the hellhound was on his heels.

.

At first, Ginny was the tiniest bit distracted after her brother left. But after a thorough workout with her boyfriend Harry in not one, but three bedrooms on the upper level of his house, with Harry snoring blissfully at her side, fully sated, she quietly wondered about how Malfoy and Hermione did and always had rubbed against each other. Like they were opposing poles, as Harry had said; belonging but rejecting each other. There was something to the thought of Hermione and Malfoy. What had Aunt Muriel said: equal magical strength is not flowing and when it ignited it can come to an adjunction. She wondered what could have Malfoy and Hermione ignited.

And what did Malfoy say: if he had a woman like Hermione he would never let her go? That was almost as good as a public love confession. She would have to talk to Hermione about that. And if he was a project to her. Although, she thought, snuggling deeper under the blanket that Harry hugged under his arms, spooning and gripping Harry's backside, like Hermione's project with the house elves, a little TLC could be just what the doctor ordered for Malfoy.

.

.

**Draco's POV:**

I was livid when I left Potter's house. How dared the weasel to insinuate she was sleeping with me? Fuck saying Ron to gain her esteem. He was and would always be a weasel. I had to give it to him what he lost when he gave Granger up, and for Brown of all people. Perhaps I was unfair. I didn't know the circumstances of their break-up and not Lavender Brown either. I never had anything with her, thank Merlin. I am Draco Malfoy and I don't ride village bicycles. I take my own, thank you very much. To imagine the potential germ transfer made me shiver.

However, after sticking it to him I had to leave or I would have blown up in his face. And Granger wouldn't have liked that. Or maybe she would have. I was sure she was going to make mincemeat out of the weasel. Now, there is a recipe I would try: weasel mincemeat pie. With a good Chateau Pétrus to mask the bitter aftertaste. Or maybe it would be a waste of the Pétrus.

I sat down in my room on my Chesterfield with my face in my hands. My plan to simply bide my time and stay entirely professional was shot to hell the minute she had been horrified over something I did to her.

I just couldn't leave Granger alone. It wouldn't have been fair to her. She had been so nervous about telling her friends, and after we had saved their necks spectacularly. I had to comfort her. She had needed my support for once.

What the fuck? Between kissing soft pink lips and frolicking in our magic, I didn't see how I could let off. It was likely the fault of our compow but I felt myself drawn to her. That wasn't supposed to happen with an adjunction. A Malfoy drawn to a muggleborn. Draco Ladon Arion Malfoy, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into?

It was too exciting to work with Granger and the compow. So many things to explore. Every time we tried something, some new thing came up. I went ahead to use something and Granger added one on top of that. Until this morning, we had been absolutely certain that the compow stood between our two magical fields, separating us, pushing us apart literally, and then Granger went and combined her magic with it. And I had never felt the magic flow between us as clearly as when we fought the Death Eaters today. Like she had been a part of me. Her magic. The way she had impaled me with her magic. And when she glided over me. Her magic. Not her body. I had had sex in water before but it didn't compare to the feeling of her magic gliding over mine. The crackling at the contact was like tiny electrical currents running over it. Each contact intensified a hundredfold. It could never be as intense with a human body, as sensual as two slippery wet bodies uniting could be.

Granger and body. Two things that didn't belong in one sentence. Ridiculous. I had never paid attention to her body because she was just Granger. The nagging know-it-all, teacher's pet, Potter's brainiac, bushy-haired, buck toothed, plain featured Granger. I was horrified when she said she had a slicing curse put on her in fifth year. She had been in the hospital wing after the disaster at the ministry but I never knew why exactly. Was that why she had come to me that night in the hospital wing? Did she also have a hideous scar across her front?

I groaned at the thought. I would never find out because I would never, ever go there. I didn't want to see Granger naked, I didn't. What for? I had beautiful women fawning over me, with silky skin and hair and angelic features in beautiful clothing, like bonbonnieres gifted, long pale even limps wrapping around me, gifts wrapped for me to unwrap and willing to be taken and devoured. What would I want with Granger? She was fresh bread and butter against these colourful chocolate boxes. She fought me every step of the way. She would never be willing. And she would never want to show me her body. Would she? I was Draco Malfoy after all, Slytherin Sex God, well, why wouldn't she? I could certainly show her a good time. The stomach she showed when I lifted her up certainly looked promising. And her long legs and her lips … 'Down, Malfoy, bad thoughts. Will you get your thoughts away from her?' I scolded myself.

I looked out over the top of my hands and in the way life plays its cards, I looked right at Gwenny, snoozing peacefully on the coverlet of my bed, massaging my bedspread with her paws. I hadn't told Granger that Gwenny came to my room every night when I went to bed, and slept on my cover. Sometimes she slept on my pillow and when I woke up in the morning, I was looking at a white and brown cat body, purring. She got up with me in the early morning hours and went out to the garden to observe life awakening. She stayed away for the time of my morning toilet and usually joined me again for breakfast.

When I woke up at night in sweat, she came to my hands without fail and rubbed against them, purring loudly, to shoo away the nightmares. She had adopted me, without hesitation, without a second thought and taken up her duty to watch over me with diligence. When I was home at the manor, it never took her long to follow into whichever room I was in. Sometimes she jumped on my lap and rolled herself up there to stay. When I had to get up, I put her in whatever seat I had been in for her to stay, but she would always follow me a few minutes later. For some reason, she reminded me of Granger a lot.

Granger had come to me whenever I needed a compassionate soul to save mine from breaking. The night in the classroom, the night in the hospital wing, the night before Dumbledore's death, the night on the tower, and I had felt my connection to her whenever I was in need.

I just couldn't figure out what it was with these women who wanted to slap me and watch over me alternately. They were driving me spare, for sure.

.

.

_A/N: Isn't he cute? He's still fighting it._

_For those who didn't get the reference to the "scene in the ministry atrium this morning" in the second paragraph of this chapter, remember the very first scene of the story, in Chapter 1? That's the one._

_Sorry, that I can't do Seamus' Irish accent. That would simply take up way too much time._

_And I researched Draco's full name for __two __hours! Research shouldn't take this long. I made it Ladon, starting with L like his father's name, and Arion to start with A for his grandfather Abraxas. Ladon stands for a __Greek myth name of a cleansing river (= flowing magic) and a hundred-headed dragon who guarded the garden of the Hesperides, also known as the Dragon of __Hera__, the Godmother, a very powerful goddess._

_And Arion, a version of Orion, another constellation, and the stellar hunter, son of Poseidon who was killed by a scorpion (Scorpio, Draco's son in the books, see Epilogue. I won't even go into the mythical meanings of Scorpio's second name Hyperion. Google it.)_

_Oh, and I just realized that the constellation Orion lies next to the constellation of the Gemini (Draco's birth sign) and across from Sirius the dog, and contains the stars Betelgeuse (yeah, Ford Prefect) and Bellatrix. Oh, the hidden meanings (well, and I just love Douglas Adams' books)._

_Well, as I said, took me two hours. The length I go to for the story. _


	19. Pillowtalk

_A/N: Alright, normally I update for the weekend but I got hung up over the next chapters and I didn't know if I needed to go back and change something, so I had to hold this back. But I think I figured it out now and I can release this one. Right as a St. Nicklaus gift._

_I have to thank a few people for reviews, they are trickling in (I deserve it, I deserve it, pant, pant): Lex Lina (sorry, I forgot to mention you last time), arcticcat621 (again), raikko, VampireQueenBrittany (good to have you back), stephanie, and ElleMNOP (funny, LMNOP), scv914, carlyyy, maxlordlady, looneyeyes, haysbee, starrgrl, tgifsass (I love Fridays, too. I woke up and had 9 reviews (nine, neuf, 10-1, 9, can you believe it?), and rioss; and gdinaFishtank13 for putting me on her favourite list (I wonder though why you didn't review? I like a concept like __**Review Revolution.**__) There are tons of people who do that, I picked her as a representative of you all because she joined the REVIEW REVOLUTION (thank you guys though, I realize that I am up on the favourites list with the likes of RZZMG (my personal hero), Bex-chan, Emerald Kisses, jmalfoy, Lady of Clunn, Rizzle (Dragon's Bride is what got me hooked on Dramione fanfiction, that credit goes to her), atruwriter, luckei, AkashatheKitty, Countess of Abe, starrymoonmaiden, camnz, Eirawen, cklls, and so on, in short: my personal fanfiction royalty, and I feel deeply honoured. Now, if only I could truly write like Bex-chan or RZZMG I'd be as happy as a lark). But I'll stop complaining. The most recent reviews have been so wonderful, I think my heart can run on them for a while._

_._

_Well, folks, this is it, the chapter we've all been waiting for. M, definitely Mature, this one. Be warned, explicit EXPLICIT sexual content. Don't like, don't read. I don't think I can say it any louder. If you are underage, don't read it. Or at least skip the middle part. You'll notice, it's very EXPLICIT._

**.**

**16. Pillowtalk (or The climax)**

**.**

It was all black in the old warehouse but he could feel her about ten feet to his right, approaching at the same pace as he did, moving soundlessly thanks to a silencing charm on their feet. Granger was becoming really good at sneakiness, he thought. Around the next corner a tent could be seen, like the ones construction workers have set over gullies, to prevent people from falling in while they work in the canalisation. He had no doubt that it was magically enhanced on the inside. The wards dissembled in a blink, they went straight for the tent now, wands raised to their shoulders.

When Gibbons' name had come up on the list of Death Eater hide-outs, he had jumped on it, wanting to finally be able to close all connections to the night on the astronomy tower. To close a chapter. And move on. He wanted to move on so badly, it almost hurt. When Granger had scrutinized him inquisitively, he had begged with his eyes. 'Let me do this, Granger. I need to do this. And I need you with me there,' his eyes had begged. She had understood. She had nodded.

The stupid monkey. Gibbons had been just another one of Voldemort's lackeys, jumping at every opportunity to prove his worth as a bootlicker. Just like Aunt Bella, but Bella had given other body parts than her tongue, he was sure of it. He shuddered. To give yourself entirely to this monster, he couldn't fathom it. In all certainty, there were people who were quite willing to spread their cheeks and be taken at random but he wasn't one of them. And now he would close this chapter once and for all.

He had confided his adjunction to his mother last night. After their disclosure to Granger's friends, he had owed it to his mother to include her as well. Just in case, he had put a snifter of brandy in her hand and made her sit down but it hadn't been necessary. She hadn't been as upset as he had expected. She had murmured mysteriously: "I wondered what happened," and shook her head at the wonders of the magical world. And then embraced him, patted his back and assured him that all would be well.

After that he was more confused than he had expected her to be. He had expected accusations and lament. It had been thoroughly anti-climactic, his mother's embrace and her warm smile. But at least she knew.

They were standing right in front of the tent flap, now. He reached out his hand to pull it back when they heard a voice behind them: "Looking for me?"

Busted.

.

**Harry's POV:**

It was like watching a dance, Hermione and Malfoy fighting together. Whenever she stepped forward, he stepped back. When she half turned, he mirrored her movement. When she dodged a spell, he advanced on the other side. Like a perfectly studied dance, like they were connected with invisible strings that had only so much room to give.

When we came two minutes later as a back-up after following Hermione's Patronus call that told me they'd found him, they were already in full fight and the Death Eater fought desperately, shooting out the curses in short order, not looking who or what he hit. Fortunately, the warehouse he had hid himself in on the outskirts of London was entirely abandoned. There was no danger whatsoever to hit an unsuspecting muggle passer-by.

We stood for a few seconds just watching them in the light from the spells and curses flying. If it had not been so terribly dangerous, it would have been a very beautiful sight. Like a perfect couple dancing in Disco light. Like they had done on our night out. Only now I understood why they were moving so well together. They were connected. And it fit somehow.

Shaking myself awake, I was going to give the sign and have the Death Eater stunned. But before I could move, a double spell hit him on both sides that had him spinning on the spot. He was literally caught between the spells and bright red light flooded the hall. I had never seen anything like it and with gawping mouth I witnessed how his stunned body tipped over in slow motion and fell flat on his face with a crunch. Hermione and Malfoy stood across from his fallen body breathing hard, their wands raised in defensive positioning, both looking down at the fallen body. Then they looked up, their eyes connected and I could see and feel the air crackle again. Just like last time. Only when they lowered their wands and relaxed their stances, I found it safe to approach and they turned as one to me.

"Potter," Malfoy sneered. "A little too late, I think."

I smiled. "You seemed to have it well under control, Malfoy." Looking at Hermione's welcoming smile I took his complaint in stride. "But I need our best team not entirely exhausted from unnecessary fighting."

He snorted and Hermione chuckled.

"Talking about exhaustion. You two look like you could use an afternoon off. Go home, take a rest, don't report back before tomorrow."

Hermione looked uncertain. It was not like her to take a day off when there was work to be done. "Hermione, I'll book him and the paperwork can wait until tomorrow. Get some rest."

She smiled at me and nodded. Looking at Malfoy who had watched her intently and nodded as well, she took his hand and they turned on the spot and apparated out of the warehouse. I was a little surprised that Hermione took him with her but even with that, I did not expect what happened next.

.

****

.

They apparated into the foyer of her apartment, stumbled through to her living room and plonked on the couch. After a few minutes of just stretching the legs, Hermione remembered her hospitality manners and got up again. She turned to her guest.

"Malfoy, I am going to make some tea, would you like some as well?"

Malfoy returned her look and responded: "After having captured another Death Eater while having him scream 'traitor' at me, I feel something stronger is in order. Firewhiskey, perhaps?"

Hermione snorted. "I'll see if I have some left from when Ron was living here half of the time. Don't expect your usual brand, though, I don't think I can quite afford that." She turned and walked toward her kitchen.

Malfoy chuckled and called behind her. "I'll give you a bottle of mine on occasion. I don't think I want to drink on a regular base what Weasley has been drinking." Or not at all, he thought. But it couldn't be helped right now. He shuddered thinking about Ron having lived here with Granger. She didn't see it because she had disappeared in her kitchen to put the drinks together.

While he waited, he took a closer look at her quarters. The last time he had been here, it had been dark outside and he had only focused on the books they had brought. Now daylight was filtering in and illuminating her small but cosy living room. It was sparsely furnished but with a lively touch of cushions on the sofa and photos and paintings on the wall. He was surprised to see that Hermione had actual paintings. They were in the style of a late Monet, flower gardens but more precisely painted than he had been able to do late in his life. They were signed with a flourish AG. The most prominent feature in the living room was a top to bottom bookshelf and he was not surprised to see their old school books on it together with a gazillion other books, muggle and magic.

He moved over to look at the photos, mostly of her, Ron and Harry, sometimes Ginny, Neville and Luna and an older couple which must have been her parents. She looked very much like her mother but had her father's brown eyes. Her mother's eyes were blue on the photo. They were standing in a summer garden that looked very much like the whole of the flower paintings and they smiled happily in the camera amidst the flowers. The photo was not moving and he assumed it was muggle.

"That photo was taken just before I sent them to Australia. It was difficult to obliviate my own parents to the point that they wouldn't remember me. Even if it was for their protection." Hermione had come back in and put a tray with bottles, teapot, cups and glasses on her couch table.

Draco turned to her: "I don't think I could have obliviated my parents and send them away. But then, I never had to. Where are they now?" Malfoy said, turning back to the photos.

"Still there," Hermione said quietly, looking down on her table, "I haven't had the guts to bring them back yet, to face them. I make up excuses of it being still too dangerous."

Malfoy turned around to look at her and when he saw her bent low over the table, while putting the glasses and cups on it, he walked over to her and pulled her up and into his embrace.

"It is still dangerous. But what else are you afraid off?" He looked into her eyes.

She looked back. "They could be extremely angry with me. I just don't know how they will take it." She lowered her head sadly.

Malfoy put a finger under her chin to raise her head to look at him again. "I should tell them what you did to me during the war. That'll give them some perspective."

Hermione had to chuckle. "No, not really. I think that would scare them."

Malfoy smirked. "Alright, then. What about that firewhiskey, now?"

Hermione laughed, understanding that he wanted to be bribed not to tell. She gave him a generous amount in a glass and took a cup of tea for herself. Before she could sit down however, Malfoy intervened.

"Aw, you can't just have tea, Granger. Where are your manners, letting your guest drink alone?" Hermione looked dubiously over at her work partner. There was a triumphant gleam in his eyes, he was exhilarated. When he raised his eyebrows questioningly, she shrugged her shoulders.

"Alright, but just a short one. This is a bit strong for me, especially this early in the day."

He nodded in agreement, pleased with her concession. "Just a short one, it is."

When she had measured a short amount for herself in another glass, she sat down next to him on the sofa so that they could clink them together and drink to a successful capture of another Death Eater.

"Why was it so important to you, to get this Death Eater in particular?" Hermione asked into the quiet of the room.

Sitting back on the sofa, he looked at her surreptitiously.

"Gibbons reminds me of the night on the Astronomy Tower. He was there with the Carrows and Greyback." He stopped.

Hermione put her hand on his knee. "You don't have to tell me anything about that."

He stiffened and looked at her hand. "I don't think I have a choice. You were there, too, in a way."

Hermione raised an eyebrow and pulled her hand back. "How was I there?"

Malfoy looked down in his tumbler. "In my head. You were pleading with me not to kill Dumbledore. That you needed him. And …" He stopped again.

Hermione bent forward to be able to capture his eyes. "And?" she questioned.

He looked away, over to the window and answered: "And that I was not a killer."

Hermione exhaled. "I said that, didn't I? When we met the first time in that classroom?"

Malfoy still wouldn't look at her. "Yes."

Hermione smiled. "And did you believe me?"

He frowned. "No. I wanted to be able to do as ordered to free my mother. But I somehow knew deep down inside that you were right. Because you are Hermione Granger and you are always right. And I loathed you for it." He finally turned his head to her.

Hermione looked back at him with a frown. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I understand that."

Malfoy grimaced. "Granger, …" She put her hand back on his knee.

"No, I really understand that. You were in a fucked up situation, we were almost at war, and you had to decide whether to safe your mother or an old man who was dying anyway as we now know. It's not an easy choice that, and I understand. Almost everybody would have chosen his own mother, it's only natural."

Malfox exhaled but didn't comment.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, nursing their drinks.

A strange tension drew around them: the elephant in the room. When they talked about anything from the sixth year, their adjunction of magic came necessarily to mind. They had found out so much about it by that point but they still didn't know what had caused it and what it meant for them. They worked together well but what did it mean for them personally? Would they continue working when they found its cause and its power manifestation? When Malfoy's year was over would they stop working together? Would they want to? When would be the right time to disclose their little secret to the outside world? How would people react?

The fact that she worked well with Malfoy would make her friends a little more approachable toward him long-term, but there was still a lot of animosity and therefore, she hadn't wanted to confide in them yet that she was magically connected to Malfoy.

Malfoy on the other hand, really had nobody to tell except his parents and a few close friends, and after their confrontation regarding their past behaviour and their future involvement in his life, he was fairly certain that his father would not take it well, even sitting in Azkaban. And he didn't want to strain their relationship any further. So he had kept quiet to him. And his mother would wait for his green light.

While trying to avoid the subject, Hermione took another sip of her firewhiskey and got it in the wrong way. She quickly put her glass on the table before she choked and started coughing to free her airway for a few minutes. Malfoy was watching her amusedly the whole time, knowing that it didn't help at all to pat somebody on the back to soothe coughing.

When she had calmed down enough to stop choking, he teased her with: "Well, well, Granger, firewhiskey a bit too strong for you?"

She glared at him, wheezing, still red in the face and tears in her eyes. He laughed at her and she bent over and snarled at him. "You, you, how dare you. I choke half to death and you laugh." Malfoy laughed even harder and she started slapping his shoulder. After a few slaps he had had enough, put down his glass and fended her hands off, which made her slapping other parts of his torso. He finally grabbed her hands and held them tight to his chest, pulling her effectively closer to him. Still breathing hard from the exertion, he looked in her face and felt his breath hitch. Granger's face was flushed, her hair dishevelled and wild, her shirt had shifted to show her shoulder and stretched over her chest, showing her form of heaving breasts. She breathed equally hard as he did and her puffs of air smelling of firewhisky went right into his face. The air became very still, now that they stopped moving and he heard a soft hum, like an electrical current. He suspected that if they actually kissed now, they would be shocked like struck by lightning.

He therefore shifted slightly and pushed Hermione gently off him, letting go off her hands as soon as she sat properly next to him. He didn't want her to feel rejected, but kissing Granger seemed like a bad idea. The last time he had done that she had slapped him. Her friends (and society as a whole) were just about starting to accept that he was not a Death Eater anymore. Instigating anything romantic (if she even wanted that, he wouldn't consider himself as a first choice of a date for Granger) could only complicate things.

He steeled himself internally against the onslaught of emotions and clenched his jaw, feeling his face become stone cold. She was surely going to berate him, for what he wasn't quite certain but he expected it none the less. Did he want to kiss Hermione again? He couldn't answer that, he couldn't separate kissing her from being with her (which was very unusual for him) and that seemed like a bad idea. She was Potter's best friend, a war heroine, a good soul and she deserved better than a war looser who tried to find his place in society again. Besides, he was sure that she wouldn't want him of all people and he couldn't help that. He looked up to say something but it got stuck in his throat at her confused look. She didn't know what she wanted either.

On his second trial he managed to say: "I better get going."

She still looked at him but somehow looked through him and said:" Well, if you must…"

He got up and went to the foyer, waited there for her to see him out. He could have apparated, of course, but he felt that a short walk was in order.

When she stood next to him, he turned meaning to say what had been going through his mind, about her status in society as a war heroine and Potter's best friend but it got stuck in his throat again. So, all he said was: "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah," she said, her voice hoarse, "See you tomorrow."

He opened the door and went to step out, when she called him back one more time. "Malfoy?"

He turned and she threw herself at him, pressing her lips against his, pushing his back against the front door which fell shut.

.

****

**Additional warning: the mature part starts here**

.

**Hermione's POV:**

I had no idea what I was doing there but when he stepped out that door, I thought, you better do something now or he'll step out for good. Back on the sofa I had realized that I actually wanted to kiss him. In our struggle, I had remembered the last kiss and how wonderful it felt and that I wanted that again. I was shocked and then he had moved me over to sit beside him. And I was so confused because I didn't know how to get what I wanted. He couldn't possible want to kiss me. I was mudblood Granger. But when he turned to step out the door, my body took things in hand before my brain could get in the way again.

I liked his smell, citrus and leather and maleness and having it so close when we wrestled on the sofa and in the doorway felt delightful. And the way his lips moved felt even better. I had started the kiss but he took it and ran, and boy, all I could think of was how good it felt.

We had kissed before, twice. Both times as acts of desperation. But it had been mind-bogglingly good, earth shattering almost. We had just never paid attention to it because there had been so many more pressing matters at the times of the kisses: Dumbledore's imminent death and the Death Eater invasion of Hogwarts and Draco's involvement in it. And my nervous breakdown and Harry's inquisitiveness. But this time, although it had started as an act of now-or-never, we had all the time in the world to delve into the exquisiteness of the way our lips fit. And delving in, we did.

He pushed off from the door and me against the wall in one smooth move without losing my lips, moulding his to mine. Only slowly became I aware that his hands were moving around to my back and pressing my body against his because I was so distracted by his lips and his smell and his soft hair under my hands. I whimpered when I felt something hard press against my stomach and that only seemed to spur him on. He put more vigour behind his kisses for a moment and then started nibbling on my lower lip. He pulled off from the wall and tried to move me back to my living room. But I pulled him further down the hallway to my bedroom.

You may rightfully ask where my reservations had gone to. I mean, just last week I had slapped him for kissing me. But I already told you that even last week I had really liked the kiss, even though I had been shocked that it had taken place. And that it had felt so exceptionally good. On that day in my apartment, I didn't want to think about the fact that I was kissing and was about to sleep with Draco Malfoy. For once in my life, I wanted to enjoy the sensations that he invoked in me. In the memory of the sensual tactile impulses that our magic had given us in our recent explorations, I wanted to shut my brain off and feel and give my control to what my body felt was right. I had the distant feeling that my thinking brain was getting in the way of quite a lot. I gave it the day off.

When I pushed the bedroom door open with my back, Draco pressed me against the door and dipped his hands under my shirt. His hands touching feather light over the skin of my waist and stomach made me shiver and he reacted by pulling my shirt over my head.

"Mmmh" he made when dipping his nose and lips down my throat to the valley between my breasts. He lifted me a little higher with his arms under my bum to be able to straighten up again while having his face on my chest. He nipped on my nipples through my bra and the warmth from his mouth made me sigh in delight. After a minute, when he realized that he had no hand free to touch, he turned away from the door, carried me to my free standing bed in the middle of the room and dropped me on it, crawling right over me. All the time, his lips had touched my body somewhere and I was glad. I would have missed them if he hadn't. He was hovering somewhere over my belly, licking around my navel, blowing cold air on it and I just had to pull him up for another scorching kiss. He hadn't tried anything intrusive yet except for going under and releasing me of my shirt, so I felt it was time to kick it up a notch.

Even though I did not have that much experience in snogging (being the brainy girl and at war does that to you), I knew that at one point tongues had to touch. Therefore, I opened my lips and touched his upper lip with the tip of my tongue. He shivered, moaned and then my tongue had company. He tasted of the firewhiskey we drunk earlier and I smelled his citrus and leather cologne. And the maleness in his usual smell had taken on a tangier note. A delicious combination. And he was all over my tongue and my mouth in split seconds, stroking the sides, tickling the underside, licking the sensitive underside of my lips. I just couldn't get enough of it. Although I had rarely done it before (Ron had not encouraged this kind of foreplay. He had been more interested in what gave him pleasure, so to say, hands on experience and the few explorations I had had with other wizards had always stopped short of too much arousal) I licked and sucked and nibbled and stroked and bit, in short, devoured his mouth and lips in abandon. Malfoy seemed to like the tiny little bites in particular. He made little pleasured noises when I held his lips between my teeth, a mix between a moan and a laugh. I held his head close to mine, digging through his silky hair, dragging my fingers through his locks, scraping the scalp lightly. He moaned at that, so I did it again. This time, he unlatched his lips and with closed eyes enjoyed the feeling. I used the freedom of my mouth to treat his offered throat. I nipped under his chin, and then bit the soft skin lower on his throat gently. He growled: "Merlin, Granger" and offered his throat wide for me to attack. I alternatively licked, nipped, bit and scraped my teeth over parts of it and he shivered helplessly with his throat widely opened.

The lioness in me went in for the kill. I flipped him on his back and attacked his throat again, making my way lower, opening his shirt out of the way. I may have ripped the last few buttons impatiently but I couldn't wait to stroke my hands over his smooth pale chest. He watched me after I left his throat, what I did to his shirt, how I stroked his skin, I skipped his scar for now, and how I moved in on his nipples and bit and tweaked them, one with my mouth, and one with my hand. He groaned at that and his hands became busy opening my bra and then moving into my hair. He pulled my head up and gave my scalp the same treatment I had given his. And when I threw my head back, he went in on my throat.

Only, he did it totally different by licking most of it, sucking on some parts and moving up instead of down while his hands moved down to my breasts and took one globe in each of them. I am not quite a C or D cup like Parkinson, for sure, but I am not an A cup either. My breasts are round and perk with a small rosy teat and nipples that are responsive to touch. I have no trouble going without a bra if I want to, but they look good in lingerie. My breasts are the one body part that I really like about me. Although, I quite never put it on display, I felt confident that my bust was presentable. Malfoy seemed to agree as he stroked over it and felt the erect nipples. He glided his fingertips over the middle of my chest as well as if searching for something without looking. What, I wasn't sure. And I was too incoherent to ask, enjoying his hands on me.

While massaging my breasts, he moved to my ear lobe and nibbled there, then bit down on it. When I squealed, he spoke into my ear: "Strip, Granger, I need to see your body in its full glory." Two could play that game, I thought. I moved my head slightly, so that I was over his ear.

"You first," I murmured and gave his ear shell a good long lick. "You have more to go."

"Oh, Merlin, Granger," he moaned, "do that again." So I did and gave his entire ear a thorough wet treatment to the chorus of his increasing pants and his search for friction with his groin on my body hovering over him. Since I was on my knees over him, I had my hands free to move to his waistband and tried to dig below it. It was too tight, so I opened his belt and trousers and moved them a little down. His breathing hitched when he anticipated where my hands would go next. I simply stroked the hairline with a fingernail and let my hands follow the heat. When I gripped his shaft the first time, his breathing stopped entirely and restarted on a deep long moan. I smoothed my thumb over the top and he whimpered. When I pumped once or twice, he stopped me with his hands over mine.

I lifted my head from his ear, so that I could look at his eyes that were almost dark grey. They pierced me but his lips quivered when he said: "Stop, Granger, or I'll be done in seconds." I breathed hard, blowing breath over his face and he pulled me back in for a kiss, and then turned me over on my back. He pulled my hands up over my head and spoke into my lips with a smirk: "You still haven't stripped."

With lightning speed he moved down my body, so that before I could move my hands to follow him, he was already over my waist, had discarded my trousers and socks in one swoop and was pulling at my knickers and attacking my centre with vigour.

I sighed blissfully and let my hands slowly run down my body to meet up with his hair again. At the sensation of his hot breath on my sensitive skin I felt like opening up. He met no resistance when he pried my legs apart, murmuring something about wanting to taste me. And when I thought that his breath on my centre had felt good, it was no comparison to how his tongue felt like. I thought I would have a heat stroke from the sensation because it felt like my entire body broke out in sweat. Which it probably did.

His hands were on my stomach and stroked over my hips to my thighs, then around to their back and down to my bum and back. Together with his tongue licking and his mouth sucking on my most sensitive parts, it didn't take long for the heat spread over my body to intensify and my stomach to tighten. I gripped and kneaded my breasts when my legs started to shake and on his next tongue stroke over just the right spot, I felt the climax sweep over me. My legs shook uncontrollably, I closed my eyes when I threw my head back and an unvoluntary "Haaa" escaped my mouth. When I opened my eyes again, red and blue and purple colours swirled around me. I let it roll over me until I felt a new sensation that I had never felt before (Ron hadn't been the most experienced of lovers).

When he slipped his fingers between my clenching silky walls, it felt like some hot liquid was being poured in. My muscles clenched around them again. Then he hit a snatch. His head shot up, his movements stopped.

"Granger" I heard him.

"Hmhm," I made, indicating that I heard him but wasn't willing to change my position and look at him.

He cleared his throat. "Are you still a virgin?"

I froze and then after the initial shock covered my face with my hands. Please, Circe, don't let him stop now because of some qualms.

"No," I admitted quietly. "I'm most likely just very tight. Is that a problem?"

"Not at all," he said calmly. "But you and Weasley have not more …?" He was more stunned than abashed.

I snarled. "Do you want to fuck or have a discourse about my love life which, I can assure you, is not very entertaining with the war and all? This is officially my fourth time, so can we get on with it?"

I could feel him grin against the inside of my thigh and he gave it a kiss. Then his fingers slipped out but before I could sigh disappointedly, he hovered over me, the head of his cock at my entrance and his eyes burning straight into mine.

"I want to fuck," he whispered, answering my question and then pushed in, half-way into the tightness.

I gasped when I felt my walls stretch uncomfortably, sudden panic taking over. It can't hurt again, only the very first time, right? Right?

"Breathe," he said, very close to my lips. I took a deep breath, satiating my senses with his scent. "I have a wide girth, you'll have to adjust. Take a deep breath and then kiss me and bite my lip. It'll give you some control."

"Okay, okay," I panted, trying to subdue my panic. I took a deep breath as told and then took his lower lip between mine, licking it, sucking on it and when I was thoroughly distracted from my ministrations, he slowly pushed all the way in. It hurt a bit. But I bit his lip as told and he panted and I panted and he held still, so that I could adjust to him filling me up and soon, both panting into each other's face, his lip between my teeth, we started to chuckle, in a breathless sort of way.

"Alright?" he said after a few more moments of panting and chuckling, taking his lip back. "Are you alright? Can I move now, Granger? You are so bloody tight, it's like your hand is gripping me. Can I move? Please, let me move," his voice turned into whimpering. He had held his face over mine but had to close his eyes and lower his forehead. I could see that he was barely holding himself together. He kissed my forehead, my temple, down the side of my face and my ear, to my neck. I figured he did that to distract himself.

I frowned. "Is it a good thing that it's tight, that it feels like my hand is gripping it?" I remembered him enjoying that.

He whimpered in my neck:" Yes, bloody yes, it's a good thing. Now, can I move? Only, I'll blow if I don't."

The initial pain was gone and so, I folded my legs behind his arse and pulled him down on me. "Yes, please."

With a groaned "Thank Merlin" he pulled almost out and gave one careful stroke. He watched my reaction closely, so I let my head sink back and exhaled. He pulled half way out and gave another stroke. After the initial discomfort, it felt good being stretched like that. It felt like he was touching every spot on my inner walls at once. I relaxed and moaned: "Mm, yessssss."

That was all the encouragement he needed.

With a growl he attacked my face and throat with kisses, long wet sucking kisses with tongue licks, and moved his hips, pumping into me with ardour.

I felt that I needed to do something, so I kissed him back when I caught his lips, licked his face where I could and stretched my hands all the way down his muscular back and gripped his wonderfully formed buttocks. When he moaned, I started kneading and scratching them with my fingernails. His movements became frantic and his moaning more pronounced.

However, he wasn't too far gone because he realized that I was nowhere close to another climax and so, he quickly moved up on his knees. He grabbed my legs from behind, pulled them over his shoulder and then continued the pumping.

Now, in this position he hit a particular spot when moving into me. I couldn't reach his back anymore, so I stretched my arms over my head and grabbed the backrest of my bed. I countered every one of his thrusts with a shove of my hips, taking him all the way in. He was still able to bend forward and suckle on my nipples every once in a while and it felt soon like he was moving through hot liquid again and I felt my muscles contracting rhythmically to pull him in and so could he. It was a magnificent sight: his lean body moving above me, his stomach muscles clenching in the rhythm of his thrusts, his shoulders rocking back and forth, his blond hair falling over his eyes, eyes closed and his mouth open in panting, all illuminated by red and blue and purple light and little sparks. I saw his eyes snap open when I squeezed my legs together, and widen and his panting became a rhythmic 'Granger, Granger'.

Very soon after, he saw my eyes widen and my head fall further back, thrashing left and right because the feeling became overwhelming. He started to babble: "Fuck, Granger, come, I can't hold it anymore, fuck, so tight, so hot, so good, fuck, oh, fuck, Hermione, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, oh, fuck," while thrusting into me with abandon.

And then the warmth washed over me again and my back arched on its own accord and lights exploded in front of my eyes and I screamed his name.

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"Dracooo"-

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****

**It continues: no reading if you are not of legal age. Or if you do, don't complain afterwards about the content.**

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Waves of warmth swept over her. She felt cuddled, like she was sinking into a pile of feathers, soft and isolating and somewhat shrouding her vision.

She barely realized that her body was still moving with Draco's, meeting his every thrust.

It did not really sink in when he gasped and babbled with increasing intensity until he yelled: "Fuck, Granger, oh, Merlin, Hermione, HERMIONE, Haaahaaahaaaaa".

Hermione did not really pay attention to his grimace like he was in pain, when he shuddered and tensed. And tensed – and tensed – and tensed because she still felt cuddled and warm, so warm. Inside and out.

However, after a while it went through to her brilliant mind that a climax had its limits and was normally followed by a collapse, a relaxation of sorts. And that it was yet to come for him.

She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him. Nothing happened.

"Malfoy?" …..

She shook him again.

"Draco!"

And then the air went out of her when he crash-collapsed onto her. Hermione giggled when Draco's forceful exhalation tickled the crook of her neck where he burrowed his face. "That good, hm?"

She thought she'd let him gather his wits again and while waiting, cradled him in her arms, stroke through his silk-like hair and wrapped her legs around him again and felt quite blissfully relaxed. After a short while, when she realized that he was becoming quite heavy on top of her, she started to wriggle a little sideways to disperse the weight.

Whack! As soon as she had moved a millimetre or two there came a loud blow right next to her ear. She froze. After a second she looked at the hand lying very innocently next to her left ear.

"Malfoy!" she turned her head to address him. Otherwise the next move would have hit her right on her nose.

The hand whacked again.

"What the heck…" she started to bristle.

"Why?" came his muffled question from the depth of the pillow.

"Excuse me?" She started to feel pissed that he was spoiling her post-coital bliss. Although it wasn't quite "post-coital" as he was still in her.

He moved his face close to her neck. She couldn't see his eyes, just the side of his smooth shaven cheek.

"I said, why?"

"Why what, Malfoy?"

He did not reply and simply moved his face back into the pillow, so that his subsequent scream was muffled again. Hermione frowned. Something was very wrong here. She tried to wriggle out some more under his body to have a better look at him, dislodging his appendix in the process.

"What the fuck, Draco? What's wrong with you?"

She had managed to wriggle out entirely, put the offending hand closer to his own head and moved to her side to have a better eye on him and other unexpected movements. You never knew – this WAS Malfoy after all.

He turned his head to face her and she could see his red-rimmed slate grey eyes.

She was shocked. "Draco! What's wrong?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Come back here" he whispered lifting his arm for her to scoot under. She shook her head stunned. "Not before you tell me what's going on here."

"Please." He reached out for her.

Hermione sighed and allowed him to pull her flush against his body. She wiggled a bit to make herself comfortable.

"Don't" he murmured.

Hermione froze again. "Don't what?" This was getting old fast.

A smile played around his mouth. "Stop wriggling or we will have to start over again."

She sighed with relief. Okay, so this was the Draco again she could actually allow so close to her body without being afraid of his actions. She let her head sink on the pillow facing him.

"So, what was that?"

Instead of answering he moved to his backside and faced the ceiling, pulling her with him in his arms.

Hermione did what she always did in a situation that confused her: she started talking.

"I mean, I am no expert in these things, obviously, but I'm pretty sure that that was one heck of a climax which usually means it's good and when something is good, people usually are more happy and not …. " Her voice faded away. Malfoy had simply put his hand over his face and was rubbing his eyes.

"Granger" He pulled his hand down his face and rested it on his (naked) chest. Hermione followed its way and came to see its resting place as a finely chiselled and muscled male chest. It had a white scar crisscrossing over it but that did not deter from the fact that it was one of the specimens that do not look good when oiled and suntanned but very good in its natural state of soft skin and firm built. Very male, simply put. And it smelled good. Citrus and leather. And maleness. Tangy but clean. Did I mention that before? Oh. My bad.

Hermione swallowed and returned her eyes back to his face only to realize that he was looking at her. "Yes?"

His typical Malfoy smirk spread over his lips. "Enjoying the view?"

Of course, he could not let it pass that she for once found something that she possibly liked about him. Merlin forbids. She huffed.

"Yes, I do." There, what would he make out of that?

The smirk spread into a grin on his face and he rolled over onto his side, to lay flush against her body again.

"I do, too." he said and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. Hermione responded to the feeling of his soft, warm lips until she could feel his grin fading and with a last pull on his lower lip separated. She kept her face hovering next to his though, so that their noses almost touched.

"So?"

"Hm?" He looked away.

He was not going to avoid answering her.

"So why what?"

He kept his eyes averted and stayed silent.

Hermione had it. "Come on, Malfoy. You almost hit my head and scared the shit out of me. One minute, I'm on Cloud Nine and the next I am so close to being physically abused. Care to explain?" She could feel herself starting to bristle again. She could always feel it like electricity surging through her hair.

She gave him another five seconds, then she lowered her head to his throat and bared her teeth. "Answer me, Draco Malfoy, or I'll bite you." She was sure he could feel her teeth scraping against his sensitive skin. He chuckled.

"Alright, alright." His hand came around and pushed under her chin to straighten her again, so they would lie face to face. He still chuckled somewhat but with the focus on his eyes now she could see that there was no mirth there. Rather something undefinable.

"I had been wondering," he spoke softly, moving his hand from her chin to lie flat on her cheek, "there, for a moment, why it had to be you." Hermione stared into his eyes, into the grey swirls that so easily changed from pewter grey to slate to silver and back again, momentarily distracted. It took her a second therefore, to realize that he was not going to continue speaking, if not prodded.

"Erm, what are you talking about?"

He looked back into her eyes, stroking his thumb over her cheek while doing so and she wondered for a second if he was just as distracted by her brown eyes as she had been a minute ago by his. But he looked like he was searching her eyes, for what she could not say. He must have come to a decision of sorts though, because he did continue after a moment.

"Granger, you know I've been with other women before, right?"

She nodded. That was no secret, Slytherin Sex God and all.

He nodded in response. "I would say my sex life is fairly satisfactory, I always get there, I have the woman I am with get there, the way there is great, it's fun and all. All quite enjoyable."

He paused again. She frowned but nodded to indicate that she understood so far, blessed as she was with above satisfactory intelligence. Where was he going with this?

"Well, there is a myth, at least amongst Slytherins, I don't even know where it started and I usually don't give a flying fuck to superstitions like this," here he frowned and moved his eyes to rest somewhere by her left earlobe, approximately. He continued "but there is this myth that for every man there is this one woman who is the perfect match. You don't know how to look for her; you don't even know what to look for in her but you'll know when you find her." He paused again, collecting his thoughts. Hermione grew impatient.

"How?" Her voice sounded hoarse.

He looked back into her eyes. "Pardon?"

"How do you know you've found her?"

Again he stared at her intensely. His frown deepened.

"Because when you are with her, she makes you think about your maker."

Hermione blinked. What? She wasn't sure if she could hold her giggles in but a look in Malfoy's face made the decision for her. This was dead serious for him, so, no laughing. Smart girl.

"Come again?" she went instead.

Malfoy relaxed a little and took his hand from her cheek to wipe his face again. "Merlin, how can I explain this better?" A thought struck him and he looked at her slyly, his smug creeping back into his face.

"Granger, when we had sex just now, you came, right?" Hermione blushed. "Errm ..." "More than once, right?" Her blush deepened. Why did he have to humiliate her like that? As if he didn't know, he made her come after all. She said so.

"Like you don't know."

He grinned in response. "Were they any different?"

Hermione frowned. Different? "What do you mean?"

He moved his hand impatiently. "Different, Granger. Did they feel exactly alike, was one better than the other, longer, more intense, what?"

"Oh". It dawned on her. "Yes, they were different." But she could not stop blushing. "One was more intense than the other. One was – relaxing, you could say, and the other was all-encompassing. It felt like seeing stars."

He stared at her. "You were seeing stars?"

She giggled. "Yes."

"And this was your fourth time?" He still stared wide-eyed.

Her blush deepened. "Yes, but it was not my first … you know."

"Not your first orgasm, Granger, there is a name for it. Merlin." He muttered. "It gets worse and worse."

Hermione had enough. "Will you finally explain or will you want to continue insulting me? It looked to me as if you were having a bloody good time as well. I am certainly no expert but it looked to me like your ORGASM was a bit on the long and intense side. You looked like you were having a fit."

He snorted. "You can say that out loud."

"And what the fuck is so special now?"

He grinned. "I love it when you talk dirty." She rolled her eyes.

He sobered. "It's a bit of an understatement to say it was on the "long and intense side". That was by far the most intense climax that not only I ever experienced but that I ever heard about. Guys talk, too, you know, even if it is to brag about their "achievements" and I never heard anybody say anything that came close to what I had. I've never read about it either. I wasn't only seeing stars, I saw a whole colour inferno, a cosmic explosion, there were several waves rolling over me, I couldn't breathe and it felt totally alright and I thought, so this is what eternity feels like. And I expected the creator to come around a corner and wink at me, like we were sharing a good secret."

Draco's breath came in shallow rasps from the reliving of his experience.

Hermione gaped at him. "Did you take something? Merlin, what did you take?"

Malfoy frowned. He had just shared his best fucking experience with her (literally) and she asked him if he took something?

"Take anything? Like what?"

She blew up her cheeks. "Anything performance enhancing?"

Draco sneered. "You think I need something to enhance my performance? I have yet to receive any complaints."

Hermione blushed again. "Hm, maybe not. But whatever, maybe something to heighten your senses. Or, - oh wait, something to suppress your disgust of sleeping with a mudblood."

Now, he looked angry. "Granger…"

She looked bashful. "Or not."

He was still angry. "We've been working together for months, exploring our magic, and I went into sleeping with you head over heels and you think I'm disgusted because you are a muggleborn?" he growled.

She looked sheepish and lowered her head. "As I said, maybe not."

But his anger was not as easily abated. "Was it only me who felt the air crackle?"

Hermione's head snapped up. "That was residue from the spell this afternoon."

"Or UST or passion or whatever you want to call it. I couldn't think of anything else but to get as close to you as humanly possible, I couldn't have stopped and usually, I have fairly good control over myself." His face softened and he stroked her cheek again. "But that's beside the point. After all we've experienced together, when was the last time I called you the M-word?"

Hermione was flustered. "Okay, okay, not for a long time. I believe the last was while we were still at Hogwarts, in our sixth year. Now, will you, please, explain what you are harping on about?"

He sighed. "Alright. Granger, as unlikely as these myths are, it seems you are my perfect match, physically. And we are already magically connected, meaning our magical strength is equal. Now, it is not necessary for a couple to have equal magical strength but I think it helps if you are somewhat level. That doesn't leave much to the imagination." He looked at her expectantly.

Hermione frowned. "And what? You mean according to this myth, we are destined to be together?"

His face morphed into a frown as well. "Yeah? Would that be so appalling?"

Hermione snorted. "No, not appalling but completely ridiculous."

His face moved on to a wrinkled forehead and a deeper frown. "Why would this be ridiculous?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, we are the perfect couple because of a myth? If it was a prophecy or something, I would look twice and not discard it right away but a myth? Please, Draco, you know better than that."

He moved a little back from her. "What is so ridiculous about a myth?"

She became agitated. "They are completely unfounded, something somebody once made up and passed on and people still believe it and guide their lives accordingly. Pathetic."

His voice became dangerously quiet. "Who says they are unfounded?"

She ploughed on without noticing the change in his demeanour. "Because they are myths. If there was any substance to it, they would be called facts or results or knowledge." She bristled.

"I see." His face had fallen and became hard now. "You find the idea of us together according to a myth pathetic. You wouldn't even want to find out if there was some truth to it, if it could work, if there was some hope for it. And I thought I was the prejudiced one."

Hermione was flabbergasted. "What? No, that's not at all what I meant…"

"That's exactly what you meant. What's your motivation, hm? Am I too 'former Death Eater' for your public image? Would the war heroine image be spoilt?" He had gotten out of bed while speaking and was grabbing his clothes.

Hermione sat up and tried to reach for him. "No, Draco, that's not… I didn't even think about us as a couple when I said that."

He sneered. "Too remote a thought to even think about it? You know what? I don't even want to know your reasons. I've heard enough for one night." Draco turned and went out of the room. Hermione scrambled out of bed and ran after him.

"Draco, wait, you got it all wrong. Let me explain."

He was standing in her hallway pulling on his pants and trousers in one swoop. He looked coldly at her nude form.

"What's there to explain? You can't see us together and that's that. Have a great life."

Gripping the remains of his clothing and his wand, he turned on the spot and disapparated away. Hermione stayed staring at the spot where he had stood just seconds ago.

"But," she said slowly to the empty room, "that's not what I meant at all." Then she sank to her knees and continued to look at the spot morosely until she felt the cold air making her shiver and she went back into her bed room and under her covers. She stayed there looking blankly at her ceiling, breathing deeply the smell coming from her linens to capture his particular scent and wondered what had just happened, until sleep took her and she slept until morning.

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****

**Okay, it's safe to read from now.**

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Hermione didn't go to work the next day. She owled Harry in the morning saying that she was still too exhausted and that she needed a day off. She received Harry's reply half an hour later while she was still sitting over her coffee and breakfast, saying that she could take all week off if she wanted, she was more than welcome to it. A small smile played around her lips. Alright, so she wouldn't have to meet Draco Malfoy today at work. That would help her sort out her thoughts. She was still confused from the night before. What exactly had happened? She had been complaining about people giving weight to the speculative content of myths and then Draco Malfoy had jumped out of her bed after their spectacular sex and down her throat and then left. She shook her head. Something wasn't right.

She sighed and got dressed. If she had a day off, at least she was going to use it to tidy and clean her apartment and stock her cupboards and fridge. She went at it like on autopilot, doing all movements required automatically and letting her thoughts wander. After that she went grocery shopping and then, because she had all day, literally, remembered that she could do with an additional pair of jeans and some tops.

When she stood in front of a table with knickers a few hours later, she realized that she had bought clothes this time not only for their typical practicality but also with a little more colour and good cut than usual. Colours and cuts that made her look good. Now, bent over the panties table to find her size she further realized that if she was going to show her body more frequently to males (she didn't think of a particular male, oh no) she might want something a bit less cottony-white and a bit more lacy and colourful. She turned about and went to the racks and in the end picked out two sets of matching bras and panties, one in mint green (a good colour for her, no other reason), one in burgundy red (for obvious reasons).

Satisfied with her purchases, she went home for tea and a little bit of reading. She picked up the afternoon Edition of the Daily Prophet on her way home and after settling in with her tea and some sconces opened it to the front page, only to spit out her first sip right on the first page. Emblazed in the middle of the page (now with an irregular tea spot) was an oversized photo of Draco Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass in close embrace, announcing their engagement.

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_A/N: (Arms spread) Tadaa. (ducks)_

_Don't hit me. What's a love story without some complications? I won't let you wait for long, I promise. The next chapter needs one final comb-through and that's it._

_But I want to hear what you guys think, first. Did I do alright in the "writing-a-shag" department? What do you think of the turn in the story? Let me kno-how (sings)._

_Cheers_

_M_


	20. Anticlimax

_A/N: You people are bloody fantastic. Two hours after I posted the last chapter I received the first review: a desperate cry (thanks, amy). You know, here I am trying to build a plausible, believable story and as soon as the chapter becomes a little more dramatic, you jump on it. I should stick to the romp-y one shots. Smutty lot, you are. But thank you for all the honest reviews. Much appreciated._

_I'd like to thank for reviews (in order): amy, jenny, CC, VampireQueenBrittany, arcticcat621, Lex Lina, nikki98, ICorona23, amanda, scv914, and tgifsass (I'm missing a few loyal ones but I can't wait. I need to put up this instalment.)_

_In reaction to your reviews, I hope it becomes clearer over the next chapters why Draco reacted the way he did. Let me know if you don't understand. From the way he's been treated all his life as JK Rowling describes it (spoilt but not quite living up to his father's expectations, i.e. receiving but not quite deserving) I find it very clear why he would react so dramatically to Hermione's "rejection". Let's see if I'll get it across to you._

_Warning: This chapter also contains some sexual content. Not quite like the last one (more of that in later chapters) but enough to put a warning here. For mature readers only._

_And is it time for a disclaimer again? Oh well, once more: although the scope of the story is not quite like JK Rowling, the characters of this story belong to her (unfortunately, still for the next forty, fifty years or so)_

_And on with it: see what they do with his betrothal_

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**17. The anti-climax**

When Hermione came back to work the next morning she expected people toasting Draco Malfoy with Champagne and wishing him all the best on his betrothal and so on. But he wasn't even there. She met Harry at his desk to report her return and he embraced her as usual.

"Feeling better?" he said.

Hermione smiled. "Oh, yes, much better. I just needed a day; we all do from time to time, right?"

Harry smiled back. "Of course, and who more than you. You really could have taken the rest of the week, especially since Malfoy did the same, with his engagement and all. Said, they were going to give an Engagement Reception at the Manor on the weekend and they needed the time preparing."

Hermione doubted that very much. Narcissa Malfoy was a fabulous Party Planner. The parties and balls at the Manor were legendary and she would have whipped up a reception in a few hours. Everything money could buy. And they still had their house elves who would do all the actual work. She wondered briefly, what exactly Malfoy would occupy his time with until the weekend, but it was actually none of her business, she realized. And she would keep her nose out this time. For good.

She nodded her acknowledgement to Harry, and went to her desk. Sitting down, she tried to think about what to occupy her with for the day and decided that she was going to continue the work she would have done had Malfoy been there. Hermione went to the library (when in doubt, …) and finally dug out Agelbert Gumptious work on Emotions in magic.

But it was a disappointment, she soon realized. She worked her way through the entire book, hoping for enlightment, looking for something that she didn't know before. The author prattled on and on, recounting the emotional power in spell casting, how a Patronus required happy thoughts, how you had to be firm in your intentions to cast particular spells (Harry had learned that lesson with the Cruciatus, but Hermione didn't want to be reminded of that), listed all the spells where emotional strength was particularly important, how emotions were able to distract your spell casting and on and on. Reading this multiple recounting of the same idea from different perspectives, Hermione wondered how some people were able to publish if there wasn't really anything new in their books. Then she realized how unfair her judgment had been: just because she had already learned everything in this book, didn't mean that nobody would learn anything from it.

It simply didn't give her anything new and no further clue as to why they had adjuncted and it was very frustrating. And she wasn't in the best mood to begin with. Emotions and magic, she wished they wouldn't mix. It would be so much easier if she could have her emotions separate from her magic. For one, she and Draco wouldn't be in this mess, they would never have become close and she wouldn't be angry that he had decided to marry bonehead Astoria Greengrass. He deserved so much better. Why had he chosen Astoria? Astoria was eye-candy, a pretty jewel, a trophy wife. Hadn't their magical work together meant anything to him? Didn't he want to continue to challenge his mind and magic and power? Then at least, he would have chosen a former Ravenclaw, they were smart. And why marry now, when they were so close to discover what their compow would and could actually do? When they became better every time they used it and found out more and more about it?

Hermione had an inkling that she had something to do with his sudden decision to choose his wife, a decision he had delayed again and again. He had reacted strongly to her rejection of his myth idea. Irrationally, but strongly. It hadn't been her fault that he reacted so strongly but she could have been more … prudent in her choice of words. And knowing him as she did now, she should have seen his reaction coming. But she had gone off in her theoretical discourse without any attention to him, as she frequently did.

She burrowed her face in her hands. Her head was pounding and the guilty feeling didn't help the situation. She was going to go home. They had worked enough to last for a few months, nobody was clocking her work time. She got up, packed the book away and left the ministry.

When she went to bed that night, she turned off her light with the thought that thank Merlin, it was already Thursday. On Saturday, she would see Draco again.

.

_The dark blond young Dragon warrior in his blue robes under the harness with the emblem of the white dragon kneeled before his High Priestess in her traditional dark red robes with the white dragon stitched on her front. He was a tall man for even in his kneeling position he reached to the chest of the young woman with the pale skin and dark, almost black tresses down her back._

"_Bless me, your highness, for I will go into the unknown to quest a way to repay my debt."_

"_You have sinned with your arrogance and your refusal to obey the laws of life. To marry and have offspring as your status requires, my Arion. If you still refuse to marry the woman your clan has chosen for you, you will have to find a way to amend or your descendants will pay for it until your sins are redeemed."_

_The young man's grey eyes captured his high priestess' brown ones with a look of deepest longing, then lowered his head again to look at her feet. "I will find a way different than having to marry Penelope. She does not own my heart. __You__ know who my heart belongs to," he murmured._

_The High Priestess sighed and stroked his cheek lovingly. "It is not fitting, and you know as well as I do that a union between a warrior and a Priestess is not allowed. You are of lower status than I, I am untouchable to you." He raised his face to her again and an angry furrow parted his forehead._

"_Before you have been called to the Priesthood of the Dragon, we were the same. And our union would be right, strong even. Have you not seen the signs of the coming darkness? With your powerful goodness and my affinity to the dark power, my maculate soul, we could have created a shield to protect the innocents." His eyes begged._

_She shook her head. "We don't know that, my Arion. And it would put another sin on your already darkened soul to steal a priestess from the Temple of the Dragon. I will not have your soul thrown deeper in the abyss for the unknown potential benefit of a powerful protection shield." She added her second hand to his other cheek. "I will suffer enough as it is when you are gone." A sole tear stole its way down her cheek._

_He shook his head vehemently. "No, Janna, no. Come with me. There is no use for you to suffer if you could be happier together with me. Even if we have to leave everything behind that we know. "_

_Another tear rolled down the young woman's cheek as she shook her head. "It wouldn't be right to leave my duty to be happier with you. But if it is to be, we will meet again. Maybe not in this life." He opened his mouth to protest but she put two fingers over his lips. "Farewell, my Dragon. Until we meet again." She bent down to kiss his forehead but he raised his head to capture her lips with his. When she pulled back in shock over the sacrilege, he held fast to the sides of her head and kissed her as if his life depended on it. After an initial struggle, she gave in. _

_When he finally let go of her, he stood up and looked at her slightly dishevelled hair and reddened cheeks. She looked shocked to the bone and with a movement quick as an attacking snake she slapped him on the cheek that she had just lovingly stroked. He caught her hand before she could pull it away and held it against his injured cheek in a forced stroke._

_With smouldering eyes, he took one last glance at his beloved and hissed: "It was worth it. If that was the first and only kiss I will ever receive from you, I wanted it to be a good one. I will cherish it forever." With those words he turned and without a backward glance he walked out of the hall. _

_Janna the High Priestess stood rooted to the spot and didn't move at all. The light changed around her, to dark, to light and back to dark, many times, and still she did not move but looked toward the door where the young man had left. Until another young woman came up to her and told her in quiet tones that the lore of the death of Dragon warrior Arion Bonnecroy had reached the temple. He had been captured by hunters of his clan and put to death as penance for his sins. His last words had been to renew his oath to serve the Temple of the Dragon and its priestesses and he was said to have sworn to fight for the protection of innocents in his next life._

_Janna turned her head to look at the other priestess and with a widening of her eyes she fainted and fell to the floor._

.

Hermione shot up in her bed, her heart pounding through her ribs. Crookshanks raised his head to look at his mistress, blinked and flipped himself over on his back to go back to sleep.

It was still dark out which was not surprising this late in the year. A glance to her bedside alarm told her that it was only 5:30 in the morning. She groaned and sank back into her pillow to close her eyes again and maybe catch another hour of sleep. But sleep did not come. Instead her mind already mulled over the dream that woke her. It had been different from other dreams in the way that it had been clear as a film. There were no missing parts, nothing bizarre as she usually had with dreams. It was as clear as a memory, lodged in her brain, and she was fairly certain that she wouldn't forget it soon.

It was clear that the man in the dream stood in for Draco. My Dragon, the priestess had called him. He looked different than Draco Malfoy but the eyes gave him away. The same with the priestess, she had had her eyes, Richard Granger's eyes. And the name Janna was close enough to her second name Jean. But the rest? And why such a mythical setting? Were she and Draco supposed to have met in a previous life and been in love? An ill-fated love? Just as it would be nowadays? Turning on her side, Hermione opened her eyes and stared into the darkness.

The warrior and the priestess had been in a forbidden love and that was where the similarities already stopped. She and Draco Malfoy were not in love. He had just chosen another woman. Not that it mattered, for she was not in love with him either. She had become comfortable with him, yes, he was even dear to her, a trusted constancy in her recent life, they'd had sex, once, but love? No. Not love.

But the priestess had been in love. And yet, she had chosen her duty over love; and fainted in despair when she heard that her beloved had to die. She had been prepared that she would likely not see him again in her life, sacrificed her love for her duty and yet lost consciousness when it came to pass. Was it meant to be a mistake in her dream, to forego love for duty, for what was supposed to be right?

Hermione groaned and got up to put on a kettle in her kitchen. With a cup of tea in front of her, she sat at the kitchen table and quickly jotted down some notes of the dream on a piece of paper, to sort her thoughts.

Arion Bonnecroy, a dragon warrior, in blue (Draco's magic) in love with his high priestess (in red, her own magic), the eyes matched. Not allowed to marry because of different status according to society rules, well, didn't that fit the bill? Only in her dream, it was the other way round; the man had been of a lower social order, so to say. And only since she had been appointed to the priesthood. So they were actually the same, except for manmade rules. Did that mean something or did it just show the absurdity of the idea? On what dimension would she be above Draco Malfoy? Hermione shook her head in puzzlement.

Her thoughts went on: Janna the priestess had sent him off to repay his debts, his sins. He wasn't good enough for her. Well, even though sins were a religious context, his debts had clearly been to the society. He was supposed to marry a woman from his own social standing to comply with social rules and he didn't want to. Hm, maybe there were more similarities after all. But he wanted the priestess and couldn't have her. And Draco Malfoy didn't want her. So, that didn't fit. He couldn't be. How could he want her? Why would he want her? She was Hermione Granger, and she totally didn't fit what he usually wanted. They had had sex and it had been fabulous (she shivered and felt the heat in her cheeks thinking about it) but then he had gone to marry another woman.

There had been so much talk about debts and tarnished souls and repayment and restriction and sacrificed happiness and consciousness in her dream, Hermione felt her head spin. What had Arion said in anger: their union would have been right? With the goodness of the priestess and his tarnished soul they could have created a powerful shield to protect the innocent. And of a dark power approaching. Well, the dark power had passed in Hermione's life (thank all that's holy), there wasn't a new one coming, was there? (_A/N: no worries, it's just a metaphor, no Voldi resurrection in this story) _

No, not bloody likely. The work they had cut out for them was to put all followers in Azkaban and move on with life. Which was going to be hard enough when you had grown up with the threat hanging over your head.

Janna had slapped Arion because of a kiss. Alright, this was clearly a message from her subconsciousness. The alikeness of her real life situation to the dream was becoming creepy, now that she thought more about it, despite the discrepancies. What was it supposed to tell her? That she wanted to slap Draco again for running out on her and not listening to her explanations? That she should be slapped because she sacrificed her love for her (theoretical) convictions? What love, though? She wasn't in love with Draco Malfoy, they were just connected magically and the sex had been off the scale good. Hermione groaned in reminiscence. Her body tingled just thinking about the sex with Draco. She wasn't sure that she could ever enjoy sex with another man as much as she had with him because she would always search for this bliss, for the ultimate connection to a lover, for the perfect fit. Everything else had to be a step down. That made her incredibly sad.

In her dream, Arion had said their union would be right, they would be able to create a powerful shield, a powerful shield to protect the innocent, he said. She and Draco had created something powerful. Involuntarily, but powerful none the less. But she didn't have to fall in love with Malfoy for the compow to work. And they didn't even know what the ultimate power of the compow was. And they were never going to find out, if he married another woman, a tiny voice in her head made itself known.

Hermione groaned again and dug her hands in her hair. Not only was it too late because he had made his choice and promised matrimony to Astoria Greengrass but she couldn't be meant to marry Draco Malfoy to be able to explore the power of the compow further. That was absurd. Well, the sex was good, and the companionship was good but marry Draco Malfoy? Everybody would say 'what the fuck'? And didn't you have to be in love before you married? And she wasn't, she really wasn't. Yes, she would miss him, miss his smell, miss his calming effect on her nerves, his riling her up and energizing exchange of witticisms, miss his grey eyes piercing her when he tried to look through her, and most of all, she would miss the work with their magical energy. And his kisses. And the sex. Merlin's saggy underpants, it had been good.

She dropped her forehead to the table top with a clonk. This was not supposed to happen. The carriers of the compow were supposed to be able to walk away freely. To live their lives without damage to their hearts and souls. Their souls. Tarnished souls. Energetic connection and tarnished souls. Something nudged in her subconsciousness but Hermione couldn't grasp it. She moaned against the top of her kitchen table in frustration.

Crookshanks came into the kitchen and rubbed against her shins. Hermione reached down and rubbed his head. "Go on, Crooks, breakfast is right there." She nudged her cat. With a last stroke over his head, Crookshanks sauntered his way over to his bowls.

Malfoy had been miraculously adept with the cats, even though he clearly was not a cat person. What did the cats, Crookshanks and Gwenny, react to in him? Certainly not his attitude. His aura, his magic, his soul?

"Crookshanks, what do you see in Draco Malfoy?" Her cat had the courtesy to look up from his bowl of food and look at her but he didn't stop chewing. He gave her a look that assembled a shoulder shrug and swallowing, turned back to his bowl to take another mouthful.

"Alright, there, Crooks, that was truly enlightening." Hermione chuckled. She couldn't connect the dots. And it had been just a dream. She stretched in her chair. Her tea cup empty, she figured it was time for a shower and then another day at work. Tomorrow was Draco's betrothal reception. She would survive.

.

****

**.**

**Hermione's POV:**

The Manor looked as imposing as always on Saturday morning when we all made our way up the entrance way. We were all invited, so we had come together as one group, making actual partners redundant. None the less, Ron had brought Lavender with him who was soo excited to see Malfoy Manor and Lady Malfoy and her fashion sense. I could barely manage the appropriate excitement for the event but Lavender had enough for three. Good for her. Harry, of course, had come with Ginny, Seamus with Dean and Luna with Neville. I had thought quickly about scrounging up a date for the occasion, but discarded the notion when the thought had struck me, that I would have actually gone with Malfoy as a date if the event had been for somebody else. And that he was taken now.

He greeted us in the entrance hall with a beaming Astoria on his side. He shook each of our hands warmly, thanking us for coming and the hearty felicitations to his upcoming nuptials. As I stood between Harry with partner and Ron with partner, my hand mysteriously was overlooked by Draco. I didn't mind. It was awkward enough to congratulate him on his betrothal so shortly after having had mind-blowing sex with him, where I thought we had truly connected. I couldn't make head or toe out of the situation.

Our group was guided through to the Grand Ballroom which looked splendidly decorated. The Slytherin colours green and silver were prominent although very discretely accentuated, but decoration can only capture my attention for so long, even if it's well done. I couldn't help sneaking glances at Draco. He looked composed enough but not quite like a luckily engaged young man who couldn't wait to get married. There was no warmth to him, but then when had he ever been warm. The last time I remembered was three day ago when he pulled me back in his arms. Oh well.

His bride-to-be, on the other hand, beamed like a thousand watt chandelier. And you could just imagine the heat under it. I didn't want to go any further in that comparison. The last chandelier I had encountered had left some pretty deep gashes on my body.

Astoria's sapphire blue gown certainly looked great with her blond hair, up done in a chiffon knot. The engagement ring was big enough to give off additional light on its own and she waved it around as if she was illuminating a dark cave, trying to get light into the darkest corners. She was certainly pretty and she and Draco would have very pretty children. Then why did this thought taste so bitter in my mouth? I wasn't pretty, that's why. And Draco had not chosen me. Not that there ever had been a situation of choosing. We had never dated, we had never even thought of dating. He was a traditional pureblood and I was a lowly muggleborn, upper working class, smart but definitely not aristocracy, lording over estates, playing the lady of the Manor. Astoria was certainly better suited for that. I would have gone out of my mind if I couldn't have used my brain for work in the future.

Then why did I think longingly of a smell of citrus and leather and a quiet strong voice calming me while strong hands rubbed my shoulders and arms? Of mind-boggling pleasure with a certain blond man? Of powerful magic exerted together? Of currents of energy running through my veins and the body of the man next to me, connecting me, feeling him, knowing that he felt me as well? Of granite grey eyes, infinitely deep and swirling and taking me in?

I was startled out of my thoughts when a hand grabbed my elbow and a smell of citrus and leather swirled around me. Turning towards the source, I looked into the grey eyes I had just thought about.

"Alright, Granger?" his voice greeted me.

I shook myself mentally. Get a grip, Hermione. "Sure, why ever would I not be?" My voice shook a bit, so I kept talking to even it out. "Congratulations again on your engagement."

He received it with a nod of the head but no comment.

"You looked deep in thought. Why are you not with your friends?"

I laughed nervously. "Oh, I was just admiring your splendid decoration. I'll find Harry and Ron soon enough again."

He looked at me piercingly. What he wanted to find in my face, I didn't know. "I'll pass the praise on to my mother. Here she comes now."

Narcissa Malfoy made her presence known. "Draco, dear, I've been looking for you. It is time to address the guests. Oh, hello, Ms Granger."

I nodded regally in greeting. "Mrs Malfoy."

She wasn't quite finished with me. "How good of you to come, after your last, hm, less than pleasant visit to Malfoy Manor."

"Mother", Draco hissed. But his worry was unnecessary. I hadn't had any qualms of coming here again. The circumstances were totally different.

"Thank you, Mrs Malfoy. It is good to be back under less than dire circumstances." I smiled benignly at her. She appreciated my forgiveness.

"Draco, why didn't you invite Ms Granger before? You've been working closely together, did you not?"

Malfoy could barely suppress a growl. I put a hand on his arm to calm him. It worked immediately. He straightened up.

"Mother, upon your own insistence I had been entertaining other witches. There was no time."

Narcissa Malfoy laughed clear as a bell. "Oh, how silly of me, of course. And now you are engaged, my dear boy. Thus, you will have to attend to your guests. Where is your beautiful fiancée?"

Malfoy sighed. "Astoria is already in place, right next to the refreshment table, you see?"

Narcissa head followed the indicated direction and said: "Ah, yes, so she is. Excuse me, Ms Granger, I'll have to join my future daughter-in-law."

I inclined my head. "Certainly, Mrs Malfoy." And off she went.

Draco however, remained by my side. "Don't you have to go as well? It looks like they are awaiting you."

He had his forehead furrowed and looked over to his mother and future wife. "They can wait for two minutes. I wanted to see how you are."

I goggled very unladylike. With a light laugh, I reined my face in and replied: "How should I be? You decided upon a wife to share your future with and that's it. Just shows you how unreliable these myths really are. Which was my point exactly."

He growled. "The myth you discarded. You called it pathetic."

I glared at him. "That's right, I called the myth pathetic. And the people who believed in it without any facts to back it up."

He glared back. "You didn't even want to see if there was any truth to it."

"No, you got that wrong." I hissed. "I said it had never occurred to me, not that I never wanted to think about it. That was your interpretation. And then you stormed out with your set opinion before I could explain myself properly."

"Then why didn't you try again to explain yourself?" he snarled.

"There was no reason for urgency. I was rather tired after an evening of unexpected, very satisfying exercise and I didn't know that I was on a deadline until the end of the night because in the morning you would go and propose to Astoria. I thought, I could sort my thoughts and would meet you the next time at work and we could talk it out like civilized people."

He looked at me shrewdly. "Would you have wanted to think about it?"

I looked at him coldly. "That is entirely speculative, now, isn't it? It is too late. You made your choice. And I don't think lowly-muggleborn-I was ever in the running for a call back, was I?"

Something clicked in Draco's brain, I could see it. For once, he had acted on emotion and not thought his decision over and it just occurred to him that that one time, he had chosen his action wrong. That there might have been a chance. That he had looked at the situation wrong. That he had made a judgment error. And I could see how it froze the blood in his veins.

I saw Astoria gliding our way (pureblood princesses don't walk) and I pointed it out to him. "Here she comes, your fiancée. You better go to her, they are waiting for you."

He still looked at me frozen until Astoria pushed her hand into the crook of his arm.

"Draco, dear, don't you want to introduce me?" She surveyed me closely. When she narrowed her eyes as she did now, she was only half as pretty as she was before. It gave her a shrewd look that her blond mane and blue eyes could not counteract. I realized in that moment that I was beginning to develop an antipathy against blue eyes.

Draco shook himself slowly out of his stupor. "Astoria, meet Hermione Granger, Granger, this is my fiancée, Astoria Greengrass."

I thrust out my hand "Pleasure to meet you. I actually know your sister, Daphne, we went to school together."

She gripped my hand like a dead cold fish. I had had a firmer hand grasp from children. I could just about hold my eyes from rolling around. "The pleasure is all mine, I assure you. Yes, Daphne mentioned you, but you had never much contact, is that right?"

'So, don't start now, coming close to my family and fiancé,' she didn't say. But I heard her. I chuckled benevolently and couldn't resist to shake her up a bit: "No, but I can't wait to refresh the connection. It would be so much fun to see each other on a regular basis, don't you think?"

I could have laughed out loud, when I saw her face falling the tiniest bit and heard her nervous laugh.

"But don't let me hold you up. I believe Narcissa is quite desperately trying to get your attention." I released her.

"Oh, yes, of course, that's why I came. Come, Draco, we have to greet our guests officially. Ms Granger, enjoy the reception." She turned to leave, pulling hard to have frozen Draco come with her.

I inclined my head again. "Thank you, I will."

I watched her pulling a reluctant Draco all the way to the large buffet and put a champagne glass in his hand. His mother shook him quite thoroughly for him to snap out of his stupor. I chuckled again. 'You made your bed, Draco, now lie in it.' I couldn't deny myself the Schadenfreude over Draco's mistake.

Ginny appeared at my side. "Isn't it a pity? He slowly grew on me and now she snatched him up. We'll never see him again."

I grinned. "Don't give up hope yet, Ginny. I don't think Draco can see this through. If I know anything about him, he'll run away in no more than two months."

Ginny frowned while Draco started his address to the guests. He rhapsodised about finding the right woman for the rest of his live and some such crab, but mostly, I listened to Ginny saying: "But it's not that easy. Once you've gone into an official relationship amongst wizards and especially purebloods, you can't get out of it again. You'll have to see it through to the end."

I chuckled again. "Draco will find a way."

Ginny shook her head. "I hope he does. I've recently thought he would be just right for you."

I had just tried to take a sip of my champagne for the toast and almost spit it out again. "Excuse me, what?"

Now Ginny grinned. "Oh, don't give me that. Don't you think I noticed how you two danced and how well you fight and how close you got? And do you want to explain what happened three days ago, after your spectacular 'dancing fight' Harry couldn't stop raving about? The day before he announced his engagement?"

Ginny was spooky. How had she seen that? "Was that truly your observation or did you borrow from Luna's clear-sightedness?"

Ginny chortled. "Ah, Luna certainly saw some things and I saw others. And together we saw a pretty picture."

"Well, get it framed because that's going to be the only way to preserve it. The real life picture just lost one leg to stand on."

Ginny patted my shoulder condescendingly. "Don't give up hope, Hermione, just not yet."

.

****

.

**Draco's POV**

I couldn't believe how wrong I had been. I had thought Granger would receive me with open arms, as she had done lately when I told her about us being a perfect match. Pull me back and kiss me until we were going to have a second round. I had certainly looked forward to that. We had made sense in the bedroom, to put it lightly. And then she had doused me with her notion that she did not think we belonged together. At least that's what I had thought she said.

When I left Granger's place, I had been so furious that I needed a cold shower before I could react in any way that made sense to other people, other than destroying something violently, which would have made perfect sense to me. So, I went home and while the ice cold water was pounding on my shoulders, I felt the weight of the world fall down on me and I went down on my knees, pressing my forehead against the wet shower wall. I didn't know why I had expected her to accept me without hesitation. I only knew that I had put off my decision of whom to marry again and again, hoping against hope that I would find the one witch who would excite me to marry her. I didn't know why I expected the work with Granger to be the solution to my problems, but hoping I did. And with her rejection everything came crashing down on my shoulders and I realized that I had stalled and that it was time to make a decision.

Thinking back to Pansy telling me that she more or less expected me to marry Astoria Greengrass, I settled on her. Not because I liked her particularly or over the other candidates. She was just suitable and the most tolerable. I could do a lot worse in a wife. She was gentle and pretty and we would have pretty children. Plus, Theo Nott had shown an interest in her and it would feel good to steal her out from him, to take what he thought he could have. Why should he be able to have what he wanted if I couldn't? I was Draco Malfoy and I would take what I wanted, when I wanted. Take that, Nott. You might have been close on my heels in school but you were never better. My family is more notable than yours and you were never a true rival. And now I am taking the woman you set your eyes on, I thought while shivering under the cold water.

After my shower, I talked briefly to my mother about my decision to settle on Astoria for a wife and if she saw something wrong with my sudden decision, she didn't say anything.

I quickly flooed the Greengrasses, requesting a private talk with Astoria for the next morning and went to my rooms to a night of endless brooding about how I would explain our arrangement to Astoria.

We were going to marry and produce heirs and in public we would be the doting husband and wife with their children. But I didn't want to do that every minute of every day. I had to tell her that I didn't love her but that I would care for her and that being a Malfoy wife was sure to give her privileges that would make up for a loveless marriage. I owed her that much. I was not going to entrap any woman without her knowing what she was agreeing to. Being Slytherin, you sometimes had to lie to reach your goals and I was a good liar. But life in a loveless marriage was going to be awkward enough as it was, I didn't need to live with a wife who felt betrayed. Purely selfish of me.

When I met her the next morning, I put it to her in the way I had prepared and I was satisfied to see that she agreed. We hurried to tell our families that we were henceforth engaged and to set a wedding date in the near future. We went to register at the Ministry and then had lunch together with my mother at Malfoy Manor and then I left the women to their devices to plan the wedding and the engagement announcement for the afternoon edition of the Daily Prophet and other things women take care off.

I withdrew to my room to think things over. I was an engaged man now and I went to bed that night satisfied that I had done the right thing, finally. Life could go on.

I wasn't in love with Hermione Granger, I thought that night. The sex had been incredible, I had never come so hard in my life and I had had plenty of intercourse before. She fit me like a tight glove and the feeling had been out of this world exciting. And her responsiveness to my touch had aroused me. Merlin, she had jumped me. The Goody-Two-Shoes Gryffindor had exploded with passion. And being as inexperienced as she was, she had simply known the right buttons to push for me. Or to bite. Or lick. You get the point. So did my prick that stood to attention as soon as I started thinking about my one time with Granger. Stroking it, I kept thinking that other than the mind-boggling sex, there was hardly anything to hold up a relationship.

She got on my nerves more often than not, yes, the intellectual sparring was good, yes, the exploration of our magical connection was enticing, yes, she could be funny at times and entertaining and surprising and yes, she smelled good and yes, the sex was good, well that one time, I didn't even know how a repeat would be, but what else was there? And she wasn't even pretty, no, that wasn't right, her features were quite delicate, she didn't make herself pretty, she shovelled an amount of food down her gully that was definitely not proper in pureblood circles and she was not brought up in the right environment. Not even in a magical environment. She was a muggleborn, which was as far removed as one could be from the ideal wife for a pureblooded dynasty heir.

There would have been opposition to a match between us from every corner, the public, my family, her friends, everybody would have been against us and with just the good sex and talk and laughter and magical connection and dancing and fighting I didn't think we could have survived. So, it was absolutely better that she had rejected me right away. My strokes on my prick became angrily aggressive and that made me think of the very tight heat that had enclosed my shaft recently. I felt the pre-seminal fluid squishing over my length.

There had been some obscure dream that woke me early the morning of the day before my engagement reception, something mythical with Granger and me in the starring roles. But I was used to wake up from nightmares and still too furious with her to give it a second thought. It had been quite clear for a dream and very detailed, but since it was about a couple with an ill-fated love and the man died in the end hunted down by his clan, I only snorted in my mind. (In reality I panted quite heavily.)

I was not going to be hunted down by my peers because I was doing the right thing and married the woman I was supposed to marry, unlike the stupid wanker in my dream. And like in my life the brown eyed woman had rejected her lover and sent him away. And then he died. A fate that I would not share. Because I was not in love with the brown eyed woman (I just liked fucking her, hear her moan my name, see her arching back, feel her tight grip on me, smell her rose scent and taste her salty skin, faster, Malfoy, faster) and I did the right thing. It had tingled painfully in my chest when I signed my name in the registry but it had been the right thing to do, I was sure of it.

When I saw her at the engagement reception, Granger had looked forlorn. She had come as part of a group but without a partner. I saw her standing about, looking wistfully and I had to know what went on in her head. It had felt right again, being in her vicinity, I felt drawn to that rightness. When she had snapped at me in her first sentence, I felt vindicated for having taken the right choice. Astoria would never snap at me, a pureblooded wife never did that to her husband. When I tried to put Granger on the spot, she did what she always did: she proved me wrong. It felt like ice going through my veins and I couldn't move for a moment or two for fear of breaking. She showed me that I had misjudged the situation, that I had been wrong to assume something without waiting for her explanations. My Malfoy arrogance had felled me again. I didn't even know how I made the address to the guests. I think mother must have imperioused me and guided me through it.

When I saw her leaving right after the address, I felt like a drowning cat. Which reminded me of her orange cat. In that moment I wanted nothing better than to curl up on her sofa, cuddle up to Crookshanks and Gwenny and hear them purr together. Gwenny miraculously stayed away from the reception.

That night, I lay in my bed alone, thinking things over again. (Yes, yes, yes, tight, hot, wet)

She had rejected me that night. That's how it had felt. She had been one of the few who had believed in me, who had given me strength and compassion in my ordeal for years and in the end, she had rejected me. And it hurt. Even the memory of it hurt. The Cruciatus gives pain as long as it lasts. The sensation might linger a bit afterwards but in the end it goes away and heals. This hurt however in a way, I wasn't sure it would heal. It felt like a fissure in my innermost, something where the wind howled through, something that would never close because something was missing. And it pained incredibly. And when I felt my face grow wet and cold and tasted salt on my lips, I realized that Hermione Granger was a soothing presence in my life that I didn't want to do without.

And there it was, the realisation when I came (Granger, Granger, ha, haaa, haaaaaaa): True to the proverb that you only know what you lost when you don't have it anymore and to mock me for the way I had put the weasel right in my typical self-righteous Malfoy way, our separation made me realize, that above all else, I needed her in my life. I needed her intelligent antagonism to rein me in. I needed her acceptance despite my oppositional behaviour. I needed her soothing and encouragement. I needed her temper to set me straight when I opposed for the opposition's sake. I needed her embrace to sink in and rest my mistreated soul.

What had started out as a duty, as a sentence had turned into a deep-seated want. I wanted to spend my days with her, cuddle up with our cats and bathe in her easy acceptance; breathe in her scent and listen to her wisecrack about one thing or another; enjoy her temperamental reaction to me (she had jumped me, for Merlin's sake) and the exciting magic we had created. Together, we had created it together. For whatever reason it had come to pass, it was ours, hers and mine, and I felt its tingling presence at that moment when I was squirting load after load on my sheets. It was energizing and it made us feel good. I didn't want to give this up. And it had been entirely my fault that I lost it.

I pushed my face in my pillow and a dry sob made its way out my throat. I yearned for her. The revelation took my breath away and I choked. What had I done?

.

****

.

Draco Malfoy did not return to work. At all. It was not a matter of not having the time or of status or anything like that. Draco could simply not face Granger anymore after his revelation. The fact that he had outmanoeuvred himself from a wrath induced wrong conclusion to jumping into a pureblooded betrothal, where he was stuck now because the laws governing wizard marriages were ironclad tight, rankled with him. And facing Granger would have meant to face that. To be reminded by her presence of what he couldn't have and of his own stupidity and arrogance was something he couldn't deal with.

Hermione took it as best she could. She became a threesome with Ginny and Luna, or worked alone a little on this, a little on that. But she was distracted most of the time and sad that she and Draco had fallen apart like this. She missed the sometimes calming, sometimes exhilarating presence of Draco, their exciting exploration of the new magic, his smell, and his genuine smiles that she had never gotten to see while they were at Hogwarts.

The dream never came again but she had not forgotten a single thing about it, as she had expected. It had been a true message from the subconsciousness. If only she knew what it was supposed to tell her.

One day moved into the next and Hermione took them one by one. She scolded herself for not having enough energy, like she was grieving. As if somebody had died. Ridiculous. Ginny and Luna enticed her to go out with them but she always declined and went home to cuddle up with Crookshanks on her sofa. She imagined that Crookshanks was always looking around her as if wanting to see if somebody followed her in. But each time she shook her head at him. "It's only me," she told him.

Until eventually after about two weeks, her doorbell rang after dinner time. And there he stood in her doorway, disheveled and so very un-Malfoyish. His eyes were red and he reeked of alcohol and pub stench, swaying on her doormat where he stood.

"Draco" Hermione exclaimed.

"I can't do it" he mumbled. "I can't do it."

Hermione opened her door to let him further in. "What can you not do?"

He leaned against her doorframe, supporting his forehead, not crossing her threshold. "I just can't do it."

She grabbed the lapel of his robe, pulled him into her hallway and closed the door behind him. Then she pushed him into her living room and onto the couch. "Sit."

She plopped down next to him. "Explain."

Malfoy burrowed his head in his hands. "I can't stand it anymore. Her sweetly Draco here, Draco there, when Draco and I are married, yes, dear, I agree, dear, whatever you say, dear, I'm going mad if I hear it one more time."

Hermione chuckled. "Astoria?"

Draco's face surfaced but he couldn't look at her. "Astoria."

Hermione grinned. "What's she done now?"

He grimaced. "Nothing in particular. I just can't stand the thought anymore that I will have to marry her. "

She sobered. "Then don't."

His grimace deepened. "It's not that simple, Granger. You wouldn't know but traditional Wizarding customs are involved and you cannot simply break off an engaged pureblooded couple."

"Why not?"

"There is a magical bond between the partners that is unbreakable as soon as you sign the registry at the Ministry and the engagement is official. Plus, my family would lose quite a bit of face. We would have to pay an exorbitant amount of money to make up for her being rejected. One simply does not step back from a promised pureblood marriage."

Hermione looked at him shrewdly. "We've dealt with "unbreakable" before."

His head came up startled. "Pardon?"

She smiled sinisterly: "Remember the wards to the hut? They were supposed to be unbreakable. But you dissolved them."

"We dissolved them," he corrected her quietly. Then he sat back against the backrest of the sofa and exhaled properly, closing his eyes in the process.

She moved closer to him, strangely pulled by his presence. It had felt good when he came in. She understood now what Draco had felt all these months ago at Malfoy Manor. Like you were exhaling when you didn't know you were holding your breath. Stretching out on a sofa relaxing your shoulders that you didn't know had been tense. Finding a puzzle piece you had been searching for a long time, enabling you to see the bigger picture. Powerfully peaceful. And now she felt drawn to their compow being alive and whole again. She could feel the renewed energy bubbling in her and wanted nothing more than to use it again.

"Do you want to try?" she whispered leaning over his head.

Draco's eyes snapped open and widened when he saw her leaning over him. "Try what?" he asked hoarsely, pulling his face out of the way.

Hermione was a little disappointed that he so obviously avoided her closeness. But then, he was an engaged man. It wasn't proper. "Try using the compow to dissolve your betrothal bond?" she explained her thoughts.

He sat up, baffled. "You think that could work?"

She shrugged, not quite sure why she was so disquiet. "We'll know when we tried."

There was a gleam of excitement in Draco's eyes. "Alright."

It was like they had never taken a break from each other. As soon as they sat back and focused on diving into their magic, they were right there, the compow glistening right in the middle. Moving their magical fields next to each other and finding the bonding magic in Draco's field was nothing. Overlaying it with the compow was like clockwork. But it didn't click. This magical bond, it couldn't resolve. The compow moved about like a string in the wind, searching for its fastening, one part attached, one flapping.

They came back up and sat immovingly next to each other. This was the first time the compow had let them down. With a deep inhale, Hermione said: "I believe we'll need Astoria as well. The bond would be anchored in her as well. I think the compow would need her second part present."

Draco groaned. "She'll never agree to that. Getting me to marry her was the best thing that could have happened to her, she'll never want to sever the bond. The status, the money, she'll want to keep all that." He sagged down on his knees, folding his hands behind his head. Hermione couldn't help it, it reminded her too much of their night in the classroom; she reached over and pulled him into her arms to embrace him. He came willingly and burrowed his face on her chest, holding her around her waist. Hermione just held him, stroking through his silky fine hair and feeling his angry exhales through her jumper against her skin.

After a few minutes he pulled her closer, flush against him and moved his forehead to rest on her shoulder. "Why are you so comforting, Granger?" He mumbled into the crook of her neck.

Hermione stiffened. She had just realized how good it felt to embrace Draco Malfoy, how good he smelt even with the reek of alcohol, how right it felt to have him thus close. But his question gave this a different connotation. She moved her head a little away so she could look at him. He looked utterly peaceful, his eyes closed and his forehead leaning against her shoulder.

"I beg your pardon?" she managed to squeeze out.

He lifted his chin and put it on her shoulder, speaking softly in her ear. "It is like this, Granger. And I'll only say it once, so pay attention, will you? The other women who want to be with me, they circle like vultures, like predators waiting for an opening to kill their prey, to waylay the heir of Malfoy, to manage to conceive his child, so I have to marry them. Even Astoria could not contain her triumph when we finally agreed on the marriage. They try to be witty to make themselves more interesting and entertaining, they flatter me and try to seduce me and try to drill themselves in my life as if they would do this for me every night of my life so I couldn't live without. It's so obvious it's disgusting. But the days with them are one long bore. How they think they can keep my interest during the days with their boring endless chatter about shopping and possessions and balls they went to and dresses and robes they wore and people they know, I will never understand. I make up mind games sometimes to pass the time."

He moved away from Hermione and leaned back into the couch, not looking directly at her. He continued: "It was always like a game for me, like a challenge because as conniving as they were, as much as they wanted to reel me in, I was better, I was smarter, I was craftier. No woman will conceive the next Malfoy heir until I let her. I have my ways. I laid and I left them, simple as that." He paused.

"But when I marry Astoria, I cannot walk away, I have to stay with her and listen to her and cherish her and Merlin forbid," he closed his eyes for a minute, "I will have to share her bed more than once; to make an heir."

Here Hermione scoffed: "Oh, yes, Malfoy, you have such a miserable life." She was piqued by the fact that he would have to share another woman's bed. It gave a little sting in her chest thinking about it. She ignored it.

Surprisingly, he didn't snarl as he would have usually done. He spoke with just a minor reproach: "Shut up, Granger, I wasn't done." He continued once her huffing subsided. "You are different. You give, you embrace, you support, you comfort. And I'll be damned but I think I'm going to miss it."

"Miss it?"

"Yes, Granger, use your brain. As the married Malfoy heir I will have to take over the family businesses. And with that the contact with you will diminish to a minimum if not cease entirely."

Hermione frowned. "We cannot have any more contact when you stop working with me?"

Malfoy grimaced. "Of course, Granger, do I have to spell it all out for you? But it will be on a very formal social level. And our social circles do not normally overlap. There will be no more work with our compow, I simply won't have time. And no going out after work for drinks."

Hermione scoffed. "You can't tell me that you will not be able anymore to go out with friends, even with Astoria when you wish to."

Malfoy shook his head. "Of course, I can go out with friends. But, Granger, we worked very closely these past months, we know each other's thoughts before they are spoken, our battles work like a studied dance and that will have to stop. "

Hermione sighed. "I see. And with it the joy and the exuberance of it."

Malfoy grinned with thin lips. "Yes, that."

She contemplated her partner in work. She had known he'd not be able to see this through. When she had seen him at his engagement reception, she had known that he made a mistake. And Draco Malfoy was not a man to pay for his mistakes. He took care of them. And she was willing to help him. After all these months of working together, she had come to know him, to appreciate him, to relish his presence. Her heart went out to him when she saw him stuck in his error. That didn't mean that she wanted him. Far from it. She was absolutely certain that he would never want her. Not that she wanted him. Just to be certain that she said it. But he was a friend and she would help. Hermione Granger helps, that's what she always did. Although, she had a feeling that there was more to it that he didn't say. She had to put him on a spot.

"So, my comfort is what to you?" Malfoy flinched. Bingo.

Then he frowned.

"Well, as it is with comfort, it feels comfortable, doesn't it, Granger? Warm. Peaceful. Accepting." He didn't quite speak to her but rather as if explaining it so himself. "It doesn't quite compare with my soft four-poster bed at home, though. And it's not that I can't find it anywhere else, so don't think you are unique," he came back to true Malfoy form.

Hermione sighed. "You give me too much credit. I can hold my own but I am not that powerful."

He sat up quickly. "Not true, Granger. You are so powerful that the air bristles when you are around."

Hermione laughed. "I know that the air bristles when we exchange "pleasantries"," she marked the air with speech marks, "but other than that… . Nobody else ever accused me of making the air sizzle."

She moved her hands dramatically to "make the air sizzle" and thus, did not notice how Malfoy moved his head closer to hers until she stilled and realized that there were mere 5 cm between their faces. She startled.

"Draco, what …"

"Let me try one thing." he interrupted. "Just once and I'll never ask you again."

She felt his warm breath on her face and lips and it made her strangely woozy.

"What is it, Draco?"

"Let me kiss you, just one more time. One deep, five second kiss."

She balked. "Why would you want to do that?"

"I just want to see if it still sizzles when I kiss you. After all that happened." His mouth had moved even closer and his eyes were switching between looking at her eyes and her lips. She knew what he was referring to.

"Why would you want to know that? Besides we've done that and last time you bolted."

"That was different. We had sex in the aftermath of a dangerous job. Adrenaline rushing and we both needed a good lay. No, this is just so that I can get that out of my head. Are you chicken, Granger? Just one kiss. Five seconds."

"But you're engaged. And I will not be the scarlet woman." She shook her head vehemently. Even if he wanted out of his betrothal, she would not be the reason for his failure.

"Nobody needs to know." His voice interrupted her thought process. Nobody needs to know. That sounded familiar. But oh, so right. And so tempting.

Hermione inclined her head toward the soft lips begging her. "Nobody can ever know," she underlined with a firm voice.

Draco's head and mouth moved closer to hers, now only a breath's width away.

"Agreed." And then he was right there, his soft and warm lips touching hers in a feather light touch and she already knew that she needed more. He continued moving his lips in the barely-touching motion and she had it. With an exhale she moved forward and took possession of his mouth in a firm contact.

And then the world stopped moving. Like that eerie silence when it feels like nothing else exists and time has stopped running. Like even the dust particles that you see in the ray of sunlight shining on your living room floor have frozen in the air. All that existed at that moment was the warmth from his lips and the softness of them and the way they moved and gripped hers back and how his hands reached around her waist and pulled her in and wrapped themselves in her hair and held her head close and the smell of Draco Malfoy, the spicy cleanliness, citrus and leather, that was so he and the way his soft hair felt when she sifted her fingers through it and pulled and the way he moaned when she did just that and she moved even closer than he had pulled her because there was no way that there should be any space between then, no, sir, not a 36th of an inch, and she had to straddle him to get as close as she needed to be and then his hands were everywhere and it felt so wonderful and so right and so warm and she never wanted to stop and judged by the fervour with which he was kissing back and holding her against him and by the moaning noises he made and the way his hands slipped under her shirt and stroked over her naked skin and how he pressed his loins against her, neither did he.

But all good things have to come to an end. So when she had to pull back because she became dizzy for lack of oxygen and they leaned their foreheads against each other and blowing little warm puffs of air against each other's faces, Hermione's ever questioning analytical mind got the better of her, as usual. She'd forgotten to give it another day off, bummer. And when she opened her eyes and looked at the man she had just kissed (and what a kiss it had been), at his pale lashes over his closed eyes and his pale skin now slightly flushed and the soft hair hanging into his face being blown up every time she puffed, even though she felt attracted, she asked herself: What am I doing here? Isn't this wrong? Pureblood and muggleborn, we shouldn't be together. And now he is engaged.

And so when his lips dipped forward again to capture hers, she pulled back and put her hand on his lips to stop them and his eyes flew open, looking directly into hers. "Draco", she stopped him, still panting.

He just looked at her and waited.

"What are we doing here?"

"Kissing?" he mumbled through the cover of her hand.

"Why?" She took her hand away.

He raised his eyebrows. "Has the kiss scrambled your brain, Granger? Why do two people kiss?"

She frowned. "I mean, why do we kiss? Why do we kiss like this?" Why does it feel so good, so pleasurable, so right when we two together should be so wrong, was what she couldn't ask out loud.

He moved her a little of his lap with a sigh and pulled his hands out from under her shirt, stroking it smoothly down, then placed his hands on her waist. She missed the warmth of his hands on her skin immediately and wriggled a bit in discomfort but could not bring herself to voice it.

Not looking at her directly, he asked his own question. "Are you rejecting me again?"

Hermione was shocked to hear him say that. "Rejecting? I was never rejecting you, there was never a position for me from which I could have rejected you, I'd say," she blustered.

He frowned. "Why do you think I reacted so strongly when I told you I thought we were a perfect match?"

She groaned. "Not that again. What is that supposed to mean even? Would you have made me your girlfriend, go out with me in public, and marry me even if I was your perfect match?"

He growled. "What if I would?"

She threw her hands up. "Oh, don't' give me that BS, you wouldn't have, so what's the point of being a "perfect match"? Lowly little m…" Draco inhaled, "muggleborn-me," Hermione swerved, "you would have never endured the ripping from your friends about me and the sanctions from your parents when seen dating me. I knew you wouldn't be able to see through marrying Astoria when I saw you at your engagement reception, but don't tell me you want to date me."

With furrowed eyebrow and narrowed eyes, he snarled: "And why ever not?"

"Because it would be a lie," Hermione exclaimed. "You could never want to date me. I'm not as pretty as the other women that you usually date, I'm a muggleborn, I fit your bill exactly NOT."

He looked taken aback after her last sentence. Then he ventured carefully: "You are afraid."

"I ..what?" Hermione stopped short.

Draco's face relaxed the tiniest bit. "You are afraid that if I dated you, I realized that I didn't want you. That I'd want to date you now because of the exciting work we've done together, but once I got to know you, you wouldn't be enough to hold the interest of a guy like me. You are afraid of my rejection." He snorted. "How typical Granger. Courage and bravery, wasn't that on Gryffindor's banner? Seems they passed you up on that one."

Hermione seethed. How dared he make fun of her? "Pishposh, afraid. The only thing I would be afraid of is that this is a practical joke. That you fall backwards laughing as soon as I agree. And it's not going to happen. You were going to marry a pureblooded trophy wife," he winced, "why should I trust your intentions towards me?"

He hissed: "I was honest with Astoria, she knows that I don't love her."

"Oh, and that makes it alright, doesn't it?" Hermione declared dramatically. "You were just going to live a lie but you kept her in the clear. Pathetic."

He stormed on: "Remember what you said in my defence. Brainwashed, traditional pureblood, I just wanted a peaceful life with my family, would that be too much to ask for you righteous Gryffindors? And now I'm here because I can't do it, remember?"

"Why?" Hermione put her face right in front of his.

He pulled a little back. "Excuse me?"

"Why can't you do it?"

"Because, …" He snarled. "Because, …"

"Yeeees?" Hermione goaded him.

He exploded in her face: "I just can't do it, alright? I can't live my life as a lie, not after all our work together, the open exchanges, the magic, the honesty, the acceptance. I can't go back to shutting myself up, just to live up to expectations from other people. I want to date whoever I like, you included," he admitted reluctantly.

"But we could never be!" Hermione blasted.

"But we are, Hermione, we already are. You just don't want to see it. Gryffindor courage and brightest witch of our age, my arse." He got up and stormed to the door without a backward glance.

She wasn't exactly certain what froze the blood in her veins more: the look of hurt in his eyes or the fact that he had called her by her first name. She wanted to run after him, hold him back and talk things over, make him understand how impossible their relationship was going to be, and wasn't he always the one who had argued that point? But before she could move, he had already reached the door, and stepped through. It slammed shut with a thud of finality. In the silence of her now empty apartment, Hermione sank down on her couch because her spine wouldn't hold her up anymore. She had a lot to think about. Again. This was becoming a really bad habit.

.

****

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_A/N: I apologize if the dream was too confusing. I had to muddle it up sufficiently because it gives a lot of clues. I promise it will be explained later. Way later. Hermione actually gives a lot of hints in her thinking. But also wrong leads. And I still want to know if one of you readers figured it out what the compow does and how they are going to use it. Or did I distract you enough with their (love) story (grins and rubs hands)?_


	21. The last mission

_A/N: Aaah, you guys are so amazing. Thank you for reviews goes to (in order):_

_VampireQueenBrittany, Forbidden1991, Lex Lina aka WW, padfootsgrl971, articcat612 (finally got your name right), scv914 (thanks for also putting me on your favourites), greeneleka, OotoriDreams (thanks for the whole gamut), and Rocky181._

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_Alright, on with the story: I think I'll need your help with the next chapters. They will have to come to terms with what's going on. This chapter is going to be a little dramatic again, because a catalyst is needed for them to face their emotions. Now, the "facing their emotions" part is extremely tricky and that's where I need your help. I'd like you to tell me when you are confused, when you find inconsistencies, when something doesn't make sense and so on. I wrote the next chapters (again starting out as one and splitting it the longer it got) in many sittings, back and forth actually, as the scenes occurred to me. The difficulty with this is to keep the development constant and sometimes it's difficult to connect it to the rest. I went through it with a fine comb but I'm not sure if I saw every inconsistency because I've over read it already so much. I only see what I want to see by now because I know it by heart. And the chapters are so long, it's takes a lot of time to edit them. And I'm running out of time. I really need to start working on a work project and I wanted this story done by Xmas (not going to happen as Xmas is already next week) but no later than a little into the New Year. _

_So, please, help me out here by editing with me. With the power invested in me, I all assign you to voluntary editors, so, please tell me where something struck you as odd or incomplete._

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand: Action! **

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**18. The last mission**

**.**

"This can't go on."

Hermione was bent over an ancient runes text, trying to figure out what it was about. It would have been more efficient had she actually looked at it.

"Pardon?" she reacted to the previous sentence, thrown at her from Ginny who stood in front of her work table, scowling with her arms folded over her chest and Luna at her side.

"Look at you, Hermione. You are a shadow of your former self. You are always only half there and half somewhere else, Merlin knows where. You withdraw from us and I want to know what's going on with you. So, we are taking you to lunch where you WILL eat something and then tell me exactly what's wrong with you. Luna." Ginny jerked her head to Hermione's one side and Luna stepped obediently where indicated. Ginny stepped on Hermione's other side and they hooked their arms under Hermione's and dragged her toward the door.

Hermione started a feeble protest of: "But I'm not hungry, I'd rather …"

"Shut it," Ginny barked at her. "You are coming with us and I won't let you go anywhere near work until I am satisfied with your explanations."

Hermione was too tired to protest more and let herself be pulled out of the ministry and to a lunch place in Diagon Alley where Ginny ordered her a hearty soup with meat and fresh bread. The short waiting time bridged by chatter, Ginny barked: "Eat" when the steaming soup was placed in front of her, before she dug into her own sandwiches.

Hermione tried a careful spoon of the soup and was surprised to discover that she felt halfway starved when she felt the broth run down her throat. She dug in.

After they finished their lunch, Hermione felt gratefully satisfied for once. She had neglected herself, she knew that, but she couldn't bring up the energy to take care of the necessities of life. Like eating. And sleeping.

"Alright, old girl, now tell us exactly what's been going on? Did Malfoy do anything to you?"

Hermione shook her head at Ginny's presumption. "No, he didn't do anything. Nothing to hurt me, if that's what you mean."

"Then what, Hermione? Tell me. We won't let you go before we know exactly what's going on with you. Right, Luna?" Luna nodded. Her usually dreamy face for once was concerned. It warmed Hermione's heart that her friends cared so much about her. And that did the trick. The knowledge that her friends would catch her in her fall opened the gates. She slumped on the table and groaned.

"I just miss working with our special magic, the compow. The extra energy was so invigorating and with him gone, it's just quiet and I don't know where to gather the energy for anything."

Luna asked, unusually inquisitive: "Do you miss the energy or working with him with the energy?"

"The energy, I don't know, working with the energy, no, both, oh, I don't know," Hermione whined.

Ginny questioned: "And why don't you two work together anymore?"

"Because he is engaged and he can't. Or he won't. I don't know," Hermione exclaimed.

"Are you in love with him, Hermione?" Ginny prodded carefully, trying to prevent a full out explosion of temper.

But Hermione only shook her head tiredly. "No. I just miss the work with him. We were just so close to finding out what the compow can actually do and he just had to get engaged and stop working on it, it's driving me mad."

"Can you tell us what you know? Perhaps we can put our heads together and conclude what it can do," Luna prodded gently. She had been filled in by Ginny with the permission of Hermione.

"It's supposed to be something from each of the carriers, something that makes the kind of our magic, something typical. The compow is the stronger the more different the original carriers are, which would make it pretty strong in our case and the manifestation of the extra powers comes with something from both of us. We've been able to resolve spells put on us, the Petrificus, and we've combined our two magics through it and when we fight too strongly with each other it explodes on us. And I have no idea where else to look."

Ginny looked at her attentively: "And you have no clue as to what it could be, other than dissolving a Petrificus? Which is actually something."

Hermione shook her head, then something occurred to her. "There was this dream I had between the …, ehm, the morning before the day of Draco's engagement reception. It was about a couple who were in love but couldn't marry because of society rules. It was all very mythical, she was a priestess in a temple, he was a warrior and of lower social standing. But even though these two didn't look like us, they had our eyes and the woman had a name similar to my second name, Jean, and it was clear that they stood for Malfoy and me. He asked for her blessing because he was going to go to make amends for sins against society because he didn't want to marry the girl picked for him, because he was in love with the priestess. She sent him on his way, but said that it would make her sad to see him go. He asked her to go with him, she declined, said her duty was there, although she cried, and when she kissed him good-bye on the forehead he pulled her down and snogged her good. She was shocked and slapped him and he said it was worth it and left. She stood there for days on end, watching the door through which he left and when somebody told her that he had been killed by hunters of his clan, she fainted in despair. There was a lot of talk about sins and tarnished souls and debts and so on, it was very confusing. I took it as a message from my subconsciousness because it was so clear with the slapping but I don't know what it is supposed to tell me. Oh, there was something else, the warrior, Arion by the way, said, when she told him that their union wasn't allowed that it would have been so right, they could have created a strong shield to protect the innocent and about darkness approaching. I'm not telling this right." She lowered her head to the table. "As it is with dreams, there were so many nuances, so many telling things in what I just saw, I cannot recount that."

"So, she sent him away but after he left she was too paralysed to move?" Ginny clarified. "A bit like you now?" Hermione twitched. That couldn't be right, she didn't send him away; he left.

Luna added quietly: "And did you reject him like the priestess in your dream?"

Hermione exhaled: "I don't think I did. You need to be important to somebody to be able to reject him. I was never important to Malfoy, I was always just Granger. Just look at the girls he was always dating. How can I compete with that? How could I mean anything to him when he can have women like that?"

Ginny scoffed. "Hermione, please, do you appreciate the women he was dating? Do you appreciate his choice in a wife? Do you really want to be like them? I don't think so." She shook her head. "Don't you think he may appreciate something else in you? The compow is certainly something special but what do you think about the fact that you were the only person who backed him up in sixth year? That has to mean something to him."

Hermione thought back to the talk she had had with Draco Malfoy right before she told their secret to her friends, last month. When he had calmed her freight and told her how he had never wanted to hurt her since she discovered him in the classroom and everything that happened that night. So, if she had some importance to Draco Malfoy, could he really have felt rejected? And then, she had done it twice.

"If I rejected him, it was all in his head. And I never meant to," she defended herself, trying to quiet her doubts about her own behaviour.

Luna said in her usual dreamy voice: "A rejection is a rejection, no matter if you had a reason for it or not."

Hermione startled and looked guiltily at her friends.

Ginny groaned: "Hermione, do us all a favour, don't go around finding reasons not to be with him. I know my brother was not the most excellent boyfriend but don't take that as a life lesson. It's not that you don't have anything to offer, just because my brother likes his women more experienced than him, and don't think you don't deserve a good man at your side. I know it's too late with Malfoy now, but for future reference, if you find a guy you like, go for it. You might want to put a little mascara on your lashes and perhaps gloss your lips. But don't disqualify yourself by your own judgement. Either you like the guy or not. Don't worry about your friends. We are your friends. If he is good for you, we'll come around. You deserve it, Hermione." Luna nodded in agreement.

Hermione thought back to the one romp she had shared with Malfoy. It had been good, heck, it had even been fabulous. It hadn't worked with Ron but she certainly seemed to have something to offer to Malfoy, even in the bedroom. He had admitted himself that it had been exceptional. Her looks hadn't even been an issue. And she wasn't ugly, she knew that. She just didn't spend two hours each morning in the bathroom to make herself presentable; or booked a hairdresser at least once a week. Or had her nails done. Well, you get the point.

Oh, Merlin, he had as good as admitted that he wanted to be with her, twice and she hadn't believed him and shoved it back in his face. Twice. And now he was engaged.

Why could her brain never shut up? It had felt so right, her body had hummed and glowed, the kisses, his body, it had all fit so well. She missed his smell, his smiles, his calm voice, his teasing, his magic, his energy, his presence. And his body. And she wouldn't have minded a repeat performance. And when he had offered it all to her, her brain had to question it. Her body had told her all along where it wanted to be but her brain had overruled it.

What had she done?

.

****

**.**

**Hermione's POV:**

When I came back into the ministry the next morning, Harry was already waiting. He gathered our entire group and waited again until we had all settled.

"Listen up. We found the place where the Lestrange brothers hide. It'll be just the two of them and maybe one or two more, thus, our group together can take them down. But I want the entire group, the buggers are not to be underestimated. Gallows and his colleagues have another mission, a bigger group out west, so we need all hands on deck today. So, pack your stuff, we are moving in an hour. Hermione, can I talk to you for a minute?"

My head perked up. What did Harry want? Did he want to leave me behind because I was so fragile at the moment? I made my way over to him.

"Harry?"

He greeted me warmly. My worst suspicions felt confirmed. He wanted to leave me behind. "Hermione, how are you feeling?"

"Quite alright, Harry, why are you asking?"

He hummed and hawed: "Well, you know, this is going to be a big mission. We'll need all hands on deck, …"

"Yes, Harry, you said that. I can hear, you know. That's one more reason to take me with you."

"Take you with me? Why would I ever not take you with me?" Harry was taken aback.

Now I was flabbergasted. "You were going to take me with you? I thought you wanted to leave me here."

"Gods, no, Hermione. I need you."

"Then what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked nonplussed.

"Well, when I said "all hands on deck" I meant ALL hands." He looked at me expectantly. I still didn't know where he was going and what it had to do with me. Until a shadow fell over us and I smelled a familiar smell. And the world felt right again.

"Hullo, Granger." I didn't want to look up. I was too embarrassed. After my recent insight, I didn't want to face him again. But if you abide by society rules, and I was all for rules, you greet someone who greets you. Since the world was so right again, I felt a little indulgent. And following rules made me feel safe.

"Malfoy," I greeted quietly. And then I looked at Harry and tried to skewer him.

"Ah, the big welcome committee. Just as I expected," Malfoy chuckled humourlessly.

"Ehm, well, Hermione. I thought with a danger as big as we are going to face, we'll need your combined strength," he whispered the last part.

"Harry, …" I tried to object.

"Please, Hermione. I know that for some reason something came between you two. But I already almost knelt in front of Malfoy to persuade him to help us, don't let me beg you as well. Please."

I refrained from pointing out to Harry that he was already begging. And I understood that our strength would be important.

"You don't have to stay close to me, Granger, if that's what you worry about," snarled the blond man who occupied every third of my thoughts (yes, my brain was big enough that I had some other thoughts still). "If my presence is so repugnant to you, stay on the other side," he rubbed it in some more. I heard his bitter tone of voice and I was ashamed of myself. The way I had behaved, I had made him believe that I abhorred his presence. But this was not the time to clear up his mistake, well, no, my mistake. Even though I couldn't understand how he could have forgotten how well we fit together, I understood that rejected people make up all kinds of explanations as to why they've been rejected. It's only natural. He must have thought I really didn't like him (as irrational as that sounds), and it was my fault. The insight constricted my throat, so I could only nod to indicate my agreement to work as a group.

Malfoy and Harry nodded in return, and he turned to prepare for the fight, whereas Harry gave me a grateful hug and whispered "Thank you" in my ear. After he had turned away from me, to prepare as well, my throat took up his regular function again and I was able to whisper "I'm sorry" to the empty room. I was sorry: sorry that I had been so stubborn, so blinded by my own prejudices and sorry that it was too late now because he was engaged to marry another woman. I hadn't allowed myself to feel anything for him because he was Draco Malfoy and we had a history. And now I couldn't allow myself to feel anything for him because he belonged to another woman and that was way worse. I had missed my chance. The epiphany almost took my breath away and only our combined strength held me up. I turned away just to gain control over my muscles again, and to prepare for the fight as well.

.

****

**.**

We apparated to the abandoned quarry, where in a worker's hut the Lestrange brothers were supposed to hide. The hut was clearly visible in the middle of the quarry but randomly strewn boulders were obstructing the view of the other side.

We spread out to surround the hut from all sides and then encircle it. Malfoy took great care to be on the exact opposite side of the circle from me. I couldn't blame him. He didn't know that I was longing for his presence and that I blamed myself that I had driven him into the arms of another woman. I could feel him through the compow but he shielded his magic from my contact. Whenever I came close, he pulled the compow in between to separate us. Like it had been in the beginning when it had been clear we were separated and it was only natural that we were.

There is no way to communicate well when out in the field. The best way we had found was our messenger Galleons to vibrate in our pockets. On Harry's command, we moved forward, toward the hut, our next man or woman right and left just within sight.

With the silencing spells and disillusionment charms over us, we moved without sounds and you could barely see the ripples of air moving. It was eerily quiet, except for a few birdcalls. It was also extremely cold, even for December and I remember that I thought why of all days it had to be so freaking cold on that day. Draco and I had dissembled the wards before we had spread out in the circle, it looked like child's play.

Until I heard a scream from the right.

"Auugh, get your hands off me, let me go, you bloody prick, ow, let go. It's a trap, people, it's a mmpfff." Ginny. Silenced. A trap? How could it be a trap?

I ran before I heard Harry's yell of "Charge". Before I reached the place where I had heard Ginny being silenced (likely by a hand over her mouth), a spell singed close over my head. I ducked and continued in a bent down running form, sending out stunning spells in a patterned fashion, one every five degrees. If I hit Ginny, it would be alright. If I hit an attacker, all the better.

Two or three of my stunners must have hit the mark because there were three people lying on the ground where Ginny was supposed to be. I bound two of them and enervated Ginny with a wave of my wand, and then half supported, half dragged her to cover behind one of the boulders.

She panted the shock out of her system and nodded when I asked her if she was alright. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Go, get the bastards. I'll gather my wits and come help in a minute." I eyed her carefully. She looked shaken but her fierceness still gleamed in her eyes. She would come around, Ginny was a fighter, she was.

I nodded in agreement and peeked around the boulder to see if the way was clear. When I saw flying curses and spells a little in the distance I sneaked around and made my way zigzagging towards the fighting.

Next to one boulder on my way I found a moaning body on the ground. I quickly went to check if it was one of us and found Neville bleeding from a shoulder wound. The front of his cloak was soaked through.

"Neville, dammit, what happened?"

"Got hit," he moaned. "Sliced right through, the spell. I lost my wand or I would have fixed it already."

"Accio Neville's wand," I hissed. With a slap it surged into my hand. I pushed it in his hand and before I lost more time was going to be on my way again, but I had to make sure he was going to be alright. I needn't have worry, though. Neville had developed into a brave warrior and wouldn't be held back by a bleeding shoulder. He had already pointed his wand to his injured shoulder and was mumbling the healing spells under his breath.

"Alright, Neville?"

He nodded and jerked his head in the direction I was going to go. "Yes, go."

I continued on my way, ducking behind boulders where I could, until I reached almost Harry's side. He was duelling an attacker in a black cloak with a hooded mask. I shot a stunner at his attacker. I knew it wasn't fair, it was against all duelling rules but we were at war here. They didn't play by the rules and I came to understand slowly that rules have their place and sometimes you were to disobey them. I listened for a second. There was more fighting a little in the distance but where Harry and I stood is was eerily quiet. I hadn't seen Draco on my way over here but I could still feel by his magic that he was somewhere off to the right. I watched Harry bind and disarm the captured attacker when he bent over and started choking.

"Harry, what's wrong?" I gasped.

I heard him choke next to me: "Dementors." And then I understood why it was so freaking cold on that day. I hadn't felt the effect because with the compow whole again, my day had seemed bright. But this kind of death-cold it couldn't keep at bay.

I saw Patronuses alight left, right and centre, charging forward to the ugly creatures, shepherding them together in the middle. Yes, I thought, good move, we can keep them in the middle guarded by the Patronuses until we can take care of them. There had to be a way to destroy them, I was sure the aurors would know. Good strategy, I thought until I realized who else was in the middle.

"Draco. Oh, my God, Draco. Harry, we are moving the Dementors to him."

Harry choked. He was still affected by the closeness of them.

Draco was somewhat immune to the paralysing effect of the Dementors, just like I. I could see him fighting valiantly in the middle, his wand slashing the air like the rapier of a very experienced fencer. But he couldn't find a break in the wall of their shapes, he couldn't get out of their circle. And he didn't know the one spell that would disperse them, these lifeless forms.

"Draco," I screamed, locked in place by fright. "They are circling you in."

I saw his face tighten and sweat glistening on his forehead. They were overwhelming him. There was only one way. I gathered my thoughts, beaming energy, prickling on mine and the exhilaration of combining two magics in one and a soft kiss that made my world stop.

"Expecto Patronum," I yelled and a being emerged from my wand, grand, majestic, white with silver eyes and a white spiky mane, bigger than an elephant. At a swish of my wand, it charged towards the melee of Dementors with Draco in the middle. Mesmerized and relieved, I watched as my Patronus drove the Dementors away like chicken by the fox. Draco turned to me gratefully, with his genuine smile on his face, but while I watched from afar the progress of my Patronus annihilating the slimy creatures, I saw his smile morphing into a mask of horror. I saw him yelling at me but I couldn't hear him over the battle noise. "Granger" I thought I heard him yell desperately, running toward me, before my world exploded with a bang and then everything became very quiet.

.

****

.

**Draco's POV:**

I had thought she couldn't stand my presence anymore. After our last fight in her apartment, I thought I had catapulted myself out of her life for good. What did it matter if we were the perfect pair if she couldn't see us as such? If she didn't trust me enough, if she couldn't trust me enough to feel something for me? I hadn't done much for her to trust me, didn't I? She had reached out to and stood up for me and I? What had I done for her? I couldn't think of anything.

But her panic, when the Dementors surrounded me, was tangible. Not only could I feel her magic pulsing irrationally through the compow, but I could taste her panic in the air. She had panicked. For me. She didn't want to lose me. The thought had warmed me so much that I had been able to withstand the creatures for a second or two longer than should have been possible. I had enough dark thoughts in my mind for them to overwhelm me with. Fortunately, I didn't have that many happy thoughts in me for them to feed on. I believe that had slowed down their advance a bit.

Then the enormous Patronus had taken care of the creatures. I had seen it emerge from her wand. Why she of all people should have a Siberian Silvereye for a Patronus, I couldn't fathom; white as snow, with the flame-like mane and with the typical silver eyes, a beautiful beast. Well, it was a little smaller than the original. A little larger than an elephant and of course, longer. But it had been a powerful one, it dissembled the 15 or so creatures around me in mere minutes.

I saw her standing, breathing in relief, when she watched her spell save me. But looking at her I saw the spell advancing on her other side, blue light coming closer to her, as if in slow motion. I could gauge that it would hit her right in the side if she didn't move aside and I yelled at her to step back. She saw me saying something but she couldn't hear. I saw her forehead furrow trying to understand what I said and I started to run to get closer to her, to push her back, if necessary to take the spell for her. But I was too far away because before I had taken twenty running steps, the spell was already on her. I yelled "Granger" in hope against hope but saw her faltering in the onslaught.

And then she went out like a light.

.

****

**.**

Draco Malfoy was going to eradicate all these Death Eaters from the face of the earth. He was going to kill them, rip them limp from limp, mince them, put them through the wringer, burrow them more than six feet deep and stomp and spit and piss on their burial sites. And if that didn't satisfy him, he would dig them back up and start all over. Through red clouded vision, he roared his fury like a battle cry that startled even his fellow fighters of the light and turned with lightning speed to the unfortunate Death Eater in the distance that had sent the spell that hit Hermione Granger and knocked her out.

'You may be unconscious but I can feel you in there,' he talked to her in his mind. 'Granger, I know you are still in there, I can feel you, I can feel our compow. I'm pulling it, Granger, I'm pulling it and atomize these bastards who dared to trap us. Give me your fucking Gryffindor courage, and I'll finish them. Just hold on, Granger, we'll get you out of there as soon as I'm done with them, just hold on.'

He hardly noticed that Harry joined his side with an angry outcry. With the majority of Dementors destroyed by Hermione's Patronus, Harry recovered and took charge again.

He let Draco throw out his spells as he pleased, though, and stayed supportively a little to the sides but out of the way and had his fellow former Dumbledore's Army fighters do the same. He wasn't sure if Draco Malfoy noticed what he did for him because Malfoy seemed to see nothing but the targets for his superhuman magic. He sliced and he swished, he twirled and he stabbed his wand through the air faster than the eye could follow, leaving streaks of light behind as an afterimage. He focused on felling the attackers so much, that the air started bristling in bright colours around him. Weeks later, everybody teasingly called him "the Light fighter" afterwards. This name was later stretched to include Hermione Granger as well, but he would always claim the title as the first who carried it. Something he couldn't help rub into Hermione whenever he could, much to her amusement, years later.

The aurors, who had been called by Harry when Ginny called the trap and when he felt the Dementors approaching, popped into existence through apparition around them and were stunned for a moment by the spectacle they saw. And then they jumped in the fray and within minutes the attackers, who had been stunned by Draco's magic as well as the terrible wrath exuding from him, were surrounded, disarmed and bound.

The battle sounds hadn't silenced entirely yet, before Draco Malfoy turned back to run to Hermione's side. He sank down next to her lifeless form, and was on his knees before he was fully at her side yet, which made him slide the last meter or so. Ron Weasley was already bent over her but Draco elbowed him out of the way to take her face in his hands.

Harry followed quietly and wondered about Draco Malfoy never ceasing to surprise him. Despite his usual spiteful behaviour, Harry had seen him nervous and afraid the night on the tower, facing Dumbledore; he had seen him a nerve wrack that held himself together by a thread in Malfoy Manor when he had refused to identify them; and he had seen him afraid for his life the night of the final battle when he had saved him from the Room of Requirements. But he had yet to see him entirely frantic as he was at that moment, bent over Hermione Granger's prone form.

He held her face gently but talked frantically: "Granger, come on, Granger, where are you, I can feel your magic, you're there, I can feel you in there, where are you, say something, move something, what hit you, fucking Merlin, where is it?" He sounded so desperate that even Ron put a calming hand on his back. He shrugged it off and concentrated quietly for a moment on Hermione, looking at her still face. Harry assumed he focused on their mutual magic, their compow. After a minute he shook his head frustrated but tried again none the less with his forehead resting on Hermione's chest. Harry made his way to his side, looking down at Hermione's face. He had seen her still before, when she had been petrified by the basilisk in second year. Fortunately, there had been a cure and it just took time. He hoped there was a cure now.

"Anything you can do, Malfoy?"

The blond man sat back up and shook his head frantically again. "No, I can't see it. I don't even know where it is. I need her participation to find it." His voice broke on "her".

Harry put his hand on his former adversary's shoulder. The blond man straightened up with resolve.

"But she's warm, she's breathing, she's there, I can feel her in there, we have to get her to St. Mungo's." He shoved his arms under Hermione's body and lifted her up.

"Granger, do you hear me, we are getting you help. Stay with me, you hear me, wherever you are in there. If you see a bright light, don't go there, stay with me. Dammit, don't you dare die on me, Granger." His voice broke again while he stood up with her in his arms. Harry stood next to him and they apparated together, to make sure they got to St. Mungo's without splinching. Ron and Ginny followed in a heartbeat.

The receptionist at St. Mungo's had seen many obscure things in her career at the entrance of St. Mungo's. It came with the territory. But this one made her drop her coffee mug. It dropped to the floor and splashed coffee all over her new dragon hide boots, which fortunately, didn't do any damage. Where would all the dragons be, if a little coffee on their scales would do any damage, I ask you?

But it certainly was a sight to behold and worthy of a dropped coffee mug: Draco Malfoy running with an unconscious Hermione Granger in his arms towards the Spell Damage ward, accompanied by Harry Potter, followed by Ron and Ginny Weasley; Potter was shouting orders while running, a medic team burst from a side room to run into the same direction as they were, and to start working even before the doors of the elevator closed behind them _(A/N: avid 'Emergency Room' watcher, couldn't resist)_.

Once in the room, one unfortunate Healer took it upon himself to tell them to leave. He was able to convince Harry that they would work better if not another four people would stand around them, trying to hold the patient's hands. But when Harry nodded and pulled on Draco's arm to leave with him, the Malfoy heir dug his heels in. "No," he said firmly.

"Malfoy, come on. They'll be faster when we aren't here, looking over their shoulders."

"You go, Potter, there'll be three people less when you take your girlfriend and her oaf of a brother."

"Hey" Ron protested feebly.

The healer came to help. "Mr Malfoy, you are not family."

Malfoy's glittering eyes would have lesser men run for cover but the sturdy healer had seen many alike. "I am a friend, as is Harry Potter. Would you deny Harry Potter to stay with his friend if he insisted on staying?"

The healer hesitated: "Well, no, but…"

"Then you can't deny me." Malfoy cut him short.

"Hey," Harry intervened, "you just told me to leave."

"But we don't even know what hit her, it could take months." The healer tried to rectify his call.

Draco disregarded him. "I don't care, I'm not leaving." And he plopped himself unceremoniously down on a chair close to Hermione's bed where other healers were working frantically, and folded his arms.

Harry on the other hand had pity with the healer just trying to do his job, and with a nod to him, he took Ron and Ginny by the arms and pulled them out the room.

The Healer sighed. The people he had to put up with. But he went to work. It didn't really matter whether Draco Malfoy was there or not, as long as he stayed out of the way. It could actually help if she had a familiar face or voice close once she woke up.

After three quarters of an hour, they had her just stabilized. Without more information about what had hit Hermione, this was all they could do. It was an entirely unknown spell to all of them. It looked like a stunner but it didn't react like one. They had to wait and see how she progressed. This was what they told Harry Potter and company as well when he came back into Hermione's room. When the healers left after the initial care, Draco moved his chair next to Hermione's bed and took her hand. He was going to try again if he could reach her magically. When Harry and Ginny saw how possessively Draco placed himself next to their friend, they exchanged a glance of understanding and with a nod turned around to leave again, pulling a protesting Ron with them out of the room.

.

****

.

**Draco's POV:**

Her hand looked so small in my larger ones. Here I was again staring at her hands when she was unconscious. "Are you in there, Granger? Can you hear me? Are you in pain?" I spoke and let my head sink on her arm on the covers. I kept mumbling into the bed sheet. "I remember you telling me to give you my pain, the first time we met in that classroom, in the middle of the night in sixth year. It feels like a life ago. This is not the same life anymore. I am not the same person anymore and it's your fault, you know that, Granger, don't you? Granger. I'm still calling you "Granger". I don't even know why I'm doing it. Granger. You've always been "Granger" to me. I know you have a first name. Hermione. Daughter of Gods, Queen of Leontes, leader of her people."

Tired of talking, my thoughts went on quietly. 'Leading you do. You led me out of the darkness. Like a queen you stood up for me, to support me, to protect me.' I delved on the softness of her body where it touched my head, her smell of roses. I thought back to her panic before her Patronus had saved me. I had Potter beg me to help him on this mission one more time, but it was for show. I jumped on the opportunity to see her again, to feel our compow whole, I would have said yes before he even opened his mouth as soon as I saw him in my fireplace. But a Malfoy needs to be begged. And I was so sick of it. I had missed her presence, her witty repartee to my snarls and I couldn't get how her body had reacted to mine out of my head. I hadn't even slept with Astoria since I'd been at Granger's apartment the last time. I didn't have the energy. This was not supposed to happen to adjuncted wizards and witches. They were supposed to continue to live separately if they so pleased. But I couldn't. I felt hollow, I felt half, I felt off kilter. What would happen to me if she died?

When I had realized how compatible we were in the bedroom after our one-time romp, I had resigned myself to the fact that Granger was my physical counterpart. It took a few moments to adjust my thoughts around it but she had simply fit. The way her body had reacted to mine had catapulted me to unknown heights. Don't get me wrong: It wasn't that she was so extremely talented and experienced in the bedroom. Rather the opposite. And of course I had had great sex with other witches before, some of them very skilled in the art of seduction, so I knew what I was talking about. But it was the fact that Granger hadn't even tried to seduce me, that she had reacted on impulse, to me, despite my name, despite my earthly possessions, perhaps not despite my looks, but certainly despite the less than friendly history that we shared, that had fit so well, that had brought me up as it had. She didn't care that I was 'Draco Malfoy, heir of the Malfoy empire, owner of a vault at Gringott's with gazillion Galleons in it'. I thought my head would explode when I came. And I am not normally that outspoken in the bedroom. After the explosion in my groin though, after coming down from my almost meeting with the guy who winked at me, the fact had sunk in that she was 'Hermione Granger, Potter's best friend, fighter on the side of the light, bookworm, know-it-all' and so on. It didn't make sense that she was to be my one woman. Therefore, I was reluctant to tell her. But I had to let her know. And she had reacted as expected; like a cat with fur on end. And with hindsight I understood why she had reacted that way: I had never shown her that I wanted to be with her because I hadn't known myself until that fateful day. And even on that day, I had only had just about come to terms with the thought. But it hurt like hell to be rejected like she had done. Although that was nothing to how it would rip me apart if she actually died now.

I groaned: "Oh, Merlin, don't die on me, Granger. You can't die. What am I going to do without you? What's life going to be without you? I don't want to know. You've always been there, from my first day at Hogwarts, you were there, showing me how wrong I was. I didn't want to believe you, you were nothing to me, a sub-being, a muggleborn, a mudblood. And you still stood up and reached out for me. Because of who you are. Merlin's beard, I'm sorry for every hurt I gave you, for every insult that cut you, for every pain I've caused. If I could take them back, I would. I'd suffer every pain that I ever gave you if you gave me the chance. And you know that's a huge offer, because of who I am. Remember my whining over the hippogriff scratching me. Give me a chance to take back the pains, to make it up to you. Don't die, Granger, don't die." A dry sob dragged itself out of my chest and I was reminded of the sound again that I made that night in the classroom where it all started, my connection with Granger.

And then I remained quiet for the longest time, listening, trying to reach into our magic, feeling her magic pulse against mine like a soothing touch but no other sign of life but her equal breathing.

.

.

People came and went. Harry, Ron and Ginny stopped by alternately every few hours to sit with Draco at Hermione's side for a while and check on any progress. They always left again after five minutes because it was unbearable to see Malfoy clutching Hermione's hand as if he was drowning without it. Healers came in and did the same, waving their wands over Hermione's body to see any reactions. Draco didn't look up, when the door opened again late in the evening. He had his head laid again on the edge of the bed in exhaustion, close to Hermione's arm, grasping her hand which rested on her stomach over the covers. He startled therefore when the visitor put her hand on his bent back and quietly said: "Draco."

He raised his head to look up at her, his fiancée. "Astoria" She kissed his forehead and wrinkled her nose over his state. He looked ready to pass out. Then she motioned with her chin to the reclined Hermione. "How is she doing?"

Draco shook his head and with breaking voice admitted: "I don't know, I don't know."

He let go of Hermione's hand and embraced Astoria who pressed him to her chest and stomach and let him cry his heart out. She knew Draco Malfoy had needs. In the short while, since they had been engaged she had quickly learned that she had to take care of his needs. Physical needs and intellectual needs. She wasn't sure how well she did, taking care of him but this was going to be her role as his wife in the future. He was an attentive lover who made sure that the woman had equal pleasure and she knew she was going to enjoy some parts of her wifely duties very much. Being so thoroughly pleasured, though, she couldn't help caring somewhat for her fiancé, even though they were not in love, and that was the reason she embraced him so wholeheartedly, even when he was crying for another woman. While she held his shaking body and stroked through his silky locks, she made soothing noises, like a mother to an upset child. "It's alright, Draco, she'll come around, just you wait, it'll be alright."

After about fifteen minutes, Draco had calmed enough to be able to sit back on his own again. He leaned forward and took Hermione's hand up again, stroking over her lifeless fingers. Astoria watched him.

"She's it, isn't she?"

Draco's voice was raspy when he replied: "It?"

Astoria made an impatient noise: "Your match. I'm a Slytherin, too, you know."

He nodded.

"Did you know before you proposed to me?"

He nodded again. "Then, why did you?"

His voice sounded dejected: "She rejected me."

Astoria raised her eyebrows: "She rejected you? What did you do, spring it on her that she had to be with you from now on and forever, without thoughts about her friends and family and everything she knew and was familiar with?"

Draco pulled his mouth in a thin-lipped smile: "Somewhat like it."

Astoria snorted: "And you felt rejected when she said, wait a second, let's think about this? This is Hermione Granger, Draco, even I know that overthinking things two, three times is what she does."

Draco lowered his head again: "I know."

Astoria exhaled: "Typical Malfoy." The blond man remained silent and kept staring at Hermione's form. Astoria sighed and made her decision. She was hoping she was not going to regret what she was about to do now, but there was no way she could not do it.

She stroked through his hair again. "I'm going to miss this, stroking through your hair. Can I perhaps do it when we meet as friends?"

Draco's head snapped up: "What?"

Astoria smiled angelically at him. "I'm giving you the pass, Draco Malfoy. I'm breaking off our betrothal. Or are you going to tell me that you could ever feel for me anything close to what you feel for her?"

With a furrowed forehead her almost-husband-to-be snapped at her: "No, but you knew that. That was our agreement."

Astoria sighed: "Yes, but I didn't know that you had such strong feelings for another woman and that you came to me because you felt rejected by her. I thought, you were just sick of searching and were settling, to get your parents of your back. I thought, it was stupid and overhasty but, hey, who was I to complain that I would become Lady Malfoy? My parents could have picked a worse husband than you. You were an excellent lover."

Malfoy glanced at her with bleary eyes. "How are we going to break the bond?"

Astoria smiled smugly. "I'm sure we can find a way. We cannot be the first couple that made a mistake in choosing a partner. We are not even married, there has to be a way."

He was still sceptic as to her true intentions: "What are you going to do, disengaged?"

Astoria looked sternly: "I'm going to marry Theo Nott."

Draco raised an eyebrow. There was something in the way she said Theo's name. "If you are in love with Nott, why didn't you tell me?"

Astoria looked down to her knees. "The Notts are a good enough family but when you "proposed" my parents of course pushed me to accept you. I never expected that I would be able to have Theo. I knew that my parents would usher me off to the best suitor. We had a huge discussion the night after you announced your visit and before you proposed the next morning. They won't be thrilled now, but they'll get over it."

He put his hand on her cheek and lifted her head again. "Let me know if they give you a hard time. I'll help. You shouldn't have to do this alone."

Astoria laughed. "Oh, I'm not doing this alone. I'll wait until you are available again and then, you'll do it with me, the telling."

Draco smiled. "I will."

She hugged him. When she pulled back, he held her close and looked her in the face. "Thank you."

She had to swallow. The depth of his feelings for the other women was written all over the lines of his tired face. If she could have inspired such feelings, she could have had this man, this tall, handsome, magically powerful, upstanding, rich man. But it was not her call, not her fault, and she really wanted Theodore Nott. Malfoy was not the right one for her. He was right for this woman lying on the bed next to them. Hermione Granger would be able to tame the temper and power of this man with her wit and own power. Sparks would fly but that would be the beauty of their stormy relationship. Astoria would never have been able to do that. Against Granger's rose, grown from dirt (_A/N I swear roses grow best on dung)_, she was nothing but a pretty little violet.

She shook him off and stood up to leave. "Anytime, Draco. Remember to defend me when your woman takes offense to my right to go through your hair, next time we meet as friends."

He chuckled. "Deal."

Astoria bowed down to him one last time and kissed his forehead: "Deal, my friend."

And she left Draco to his quiet watch and thoughts, thinking on her way out, 'Merlin, let her recover soon. I couldn't stand seeing Draco break for good.'

**.**

**Draco's POV**

When Astoria left, I felt elated like I hadn't in a long time. She had set me free. I wasn't going to be trapped in a marriage while pining for another woman. I had felt like the light in my life was missing with Granger absent, everything came in shades of grey and when I felt whole again by simply being in the same room as she, there was no doubt to me any longer that I wanted Granger. But I thought she didn't want me. And even though my Malfoy pride was a little injured that there actually was a woman who didn't want me, I couldn't blame her for that. I hadn't given her much reason to want me besides the amazing magic we shared and the incredible shag we had. I had exuded a certain attitude toward her all through our school years and understood that we had to overcome that kind of ingrained antagonism. But Astoria set me free and I was going to spend my future trying to convince Granger that we could have something worthy. And even if she couldn't be convinced at least I had the freedom to try.

I didn't deserve this kind of dedication. Why were people around all showing their best sides, their generosity, their big hearts? Next thing would be Zabini hugging and comforting me. Or Goyle telling me he found the love of his life. Heard that, Granger, I think that's your fault as well.

.

.

The next morning, Pansy and Blaise came visiting.

"Draco, man, look at you," Blaise blurted out as soon as they stepped into the room. Pansy supported his outcry. "Draco, honey, you need to take care of yourself. You look like you've been through the wringer." Draco shook his head.

"Put a Scourgify over me if you want but I'm not leaving her bedside before she wakes up."

"But that could take months," Pansy exclaimed.

Draco nodded. "Then I'll stay here for months."

Blaise sat down next to him. "But what will people say? There are already whispers that Draco Malfoy won't leave the bedside of one Hermione Granger and everybody saying that raises their eyebrows. Everybody is aware that you worked together, but the way you watch over her is a little to intimate. What about Astoria? Does she know?"

Draco mumbled. "She knows." And nothing more.

"And? What does she say?" Pansy was almost excited that there was going to be more societal gossip.

Draco shook his head. Not before they had told her parents. If he told Pansy now, the whole town would know tomorrow. (The same applied for telling them about the compow.) And it wouldn't be fair to Astoria. Because he wouldn't be there to help her deal with it. He would be here, right here. Unless Granger had woken up. Which was not bloody likely. Damn.

Blaise understood. "Pansy, let him be. Draco, my man, is there anything we can do for you?"

Draco quietly shook his head again. "Not unless you can tell me what hit her and have a counter curse at the ready." Just leave me be, my friend, he didn't say. But Blaise understood him anyway.

Blaise sighed. "I can go and hit the books. But don't expect too much. It will take a while, too."

Draco nooded.

"But…," Pansy started.

Blaise took her elbow. "No, Pansy, we can't help here. But we can help with research. Who knows better than us what curses they could possibly use?" He gave a tight-lipped smile toward his blond friend and pulled the quietly protesting Pansy with him out of the hospital room, closing the door quietly after him and leaving Draco once again to his so far unsuccessful trials to pull Hermione out of her magically induced coma.

.

.

The next day, when the door opened once again, the unlikely face of Gregory Goyle peeked around it. When he saw Malfoy's head rest on Granger's bed, he quietly snuck in and sat down next to his former commander.

"Hey, Draco, how're you doing?" he said to make his presence known.

Malfoy looked up surprised at his former subordinate. "Goyle. What are you doing here? You are the last person I would expect to visit her."

Goyle shook his head. "I'm not visiting her, I'm visiting you."

Draco's eyebrow furrowed. "Why would you not visit her? Once a mudblood, always a mudblood?"

Gregory Goyle snorted. "What do you take me for? But why would I visit her? I bet she doesn't even know that I actually can talk and that I finished my NEWTs." He paused. Draco waited.

"But you know, Draco. And after I heard, I just wanted to see how you are doing." Goyle continued. "And to give you my support."

Draco Malfoy raised an eyebrow sceptically and kept waiting.

Goyle chuckled, understanding that he had to give Draco more than that. "You know, Draco, she helped to safe my life. She and Weasley. I could imagine worse things than you being happy with her."

Malfoy looked uncertain. "What about the mudblood bullshit?"

Goyle shrugged. "That's just what it was, bullshit. You know it, I know it, that part of our life is hopefully completely over. There will always be idiots who think that some people are better than others but we know how to deal with it now, head on. It doesn't matter what you choose to differentiate between people, you can always find a dimension where somebody is better than another. But it's all the same bullshit." He paused again, reminiscing, then continued.

"Too bad, Crabbe isn't here. He would have eventually understood as well. Too bad, he never had a chance." Goyle looked off to the window.

Malfoy understood. He gave him enough time to dry his tears again. He personally couldn't cry for the loss of Crabbe. Crabbe had never been a mate for him, more like a minion to order around and do his bidding.

He might have struck up a friendship now that they were older and the war was over. But they would never know if Crabbe would have actually wanted that. Goyle, on the other hand, had been very close to Crabbe and Malfoy could respect that. Now, he could. Again Granger's fault. Oh, he would give her hell whenever she woke up, for all the epiphanies he was having while waiting for her.

And for the first time in his life, he reached out his hand and patted Goyle's meaty shoulder. "Rest his soul, my friend," he said. Goyle nodded silently. And then joined Draco in staring at Granger's still from. After a minute, he asked with a jerk of his chin toward the bed: "Is she going to wake up?"

Malfoy sighed: "I don't know. I don't know what hit her. Our magic is connected, we had an adjunction in sixth year, but I don't know enough to isolate the foreign magic in her from her own without her input." He didn't care anymore who knew. People would find out eventually anyway. He could at least tell his closest friends.

Goyle raised an eyebrow. "You are adjuncted with her? Well, that explains quite a bit."

Draco shook his head tiredly. "I'll tell you the whole story another time, alright?"

Goyle swallowed the news simply to be digested at another time and looked back to the bed. "What colour did it have, the spell that hit her?"

Malfoy looked at his fellow Slytherin sceptically. It would be a first if Goyle actually could contribute something. "It was blue."

"What did she do before the spell hit her?" Goyle inquired further.

Malfoy sighed again: "She casted a Patronus to save me from 15 Dementors circling me in. And it was huge, a dragon. It dispersed the foul creatures like sparrows on a park bench."

Goyle chuckled. "Yeah, they do that, Patronuses. I've tried to cast one but I haven't managed it yet. Dementors creep me out." He looked down on his knees but continued talking. "You know Crabbe and I received special training from the Carrows in seventh year, right?"

Malfoy nodded. That was no secret.

Goyle nodded as well. "Amycus took us aside one day and showed us that one spell, "Katatonici" that basically incarcerates the targeted person inside their body, inside their mind. It's different from a Petrificus or a Stunner. A Petrificus immobilizes you temporarily, but you can see in their eyes that they are still there, you can blink to protect your eyes and such and like a knock-out stunner, it's easily resolved, everybody knows the counter spell. Katatonici imprisons them within their mind. They are wide awake in there, but very deep in there, and can't move a muscle and have no control over their body or their magic anymore. And nobody knows the counter curse, except for very few. Carrow tried it out on Crabbe and he looked exactly like Granger over there. When freed from it, Crabbe told me it was horrible, he could hear us talking and thought he'd go mad because he knew he couldn't get out. And he was only under for a few minutes."

Malfoy interrupted: "What's the counter curse?"

Goyle sighed. "That's the problem, Carrow didn't show us. He used it to free Vincent but I don't remember; it was just that one time. He trained us afterward to do the spell on other students as punishments and for detention but he always awoke the students himself and never let us do it. I'm just telling you, so maybe you have a better idea of what it could be. I also believe that this spell was invented by the Dark Lord himself, you won't find it in any books. And Carrow is not going to tell you unless you give him something in return."

Malfoy snorted impatiently. "What can I do, then?"

Goyle shrugged. "You need to find her in there. And fast. She has a well sorted mind and will keep herself busy but being confined in your mind is not funny and the longer you wait…."

Malfoy was highly alarmed. "But I already tried that. How else can I find her?"

Goyle glanced at his friend. "That I don't know. I believe that is something only you know and can do. At least you know now that she is awake in there."

Malfoy looked desperately at Hermione on the bed, trying to find an entrance into her mind. Goyle patted his shoulder. "I'll leave you to it, then. Best of luck, my friend."

He got up and left the room as quietly as he had come in. He didn't need to wait for a thank-you. He owed them enough, the two in the room back there. It was the least he could have done. Gregory Goyle hoped there would be time later.

.

.

Malfoy didn't really register that Goyle got up and left. He had already dived again into the magical energy that connected him and Granger. He dug down, mentally, until he could "see" the border between their mutual purple magic and Hermione's burgundy-red. When his magic touched hers, he again could feel the pulsing against his energy that told him that she was still alive. That was as far as he had recently gone. He needed her help if he wanted to use their combined magic. What had Goyle said, they were wide awake in there? He had to try.

"Granger, can you hear me? Did you hear what Goyle said? Is it true, are you in there, unable to move or communicate? I need your help if I want to get you out of there. I cannot move our magic alone into you. But if you can pull on your end, maybe I can get it in there? Where ever you are in there? Remember how we almost neutralized the magic of my Dark Mark? Maybe we can neutralize this here? But I need your help. I can't do it alone. Can you do something, like push your magic against mine if you can hear me?" He paused. And waited. On the border between the compow and his and her magic, he hovered and waited with baited breath.

He almost had a heart failure when he felt the pulsing of her magic change. As if it skipped a beat, the rhythm changed and started anew. Like a knocking on his magical wall.

He huffed. "Granger, was that you? If that was you, do it again. Please. I'm having a heart attack here. And I know that's a muggle thing to have."

The beat skip and knocking came again.

"Yes," Malfoy hissed. "Merlin's dirty underpants, you can hear me. I can feel your knocking. Alright, quick, how do I get in? Can I push our compow in to you?" He waited again, not daring to breathe.

Something pulled on his magic. No knocking, no beat change, but real pulling.

"You can pull? Why didn't you do so before then? Oh, bloody hell, don't say anything, Granger, I know you can't answer." The pulsing changed again. It felt like a tickling, like she was laughing in there. Great, imprisoned in her body and mind and she was laughing at him.

"Yeah, laugh at me, why do I care? I should just get up and leave. Alright, alright, Draco, get a grip." He squeezed the bridge of his nose. Something pulled again on him. "Don't want me to leave, eh? Should have thought of that before you laughed at me. Wait, if you pull and I push, can we do it together?"

The beat skip and knocking again. "Hello? Are you saying Hello? As in Hello-o, somebody home? You just wait till I get you out of there." The laughing pulse again.

"Okay, let's get on it. I need to yell at you and I need you to respond to my yelling. On three, I'll push the purple into your burgundy, alright? And you pull with all your might on your end, alright? Alright, Granger?"

Beat skip and knocking. "I take that as a yes. Okay, Granger, one-two-three."

With the same might he had pulled on Granger's magic months ago to save her from unendurable pain, he pushed purple magic into Granger's energy. He felt a complimentary force on the other side of his push and saw the purple brightening, vibrating, trembling, pulsating, like a germ-eating protein working its way into Hermione's burgundy.

When it was swallowed and stopped vibrating he stopped and left. He observed Hermione lying on her bed and was satisfied to see her eyelids flutter as if in a REM dream. That was an improvement from before. He had done his part, and he knew that he had succeeded. Now he had to wait and see.

A few hours later, a Healer came back in to do a regular check on Hermione. This time the light of the wand swept changed from blue to red. The Healer smiled.

"Cheer up, Mr Malfoy. There is a response. Her body is shaking the spell off. It will only be a matter of time until she awakes. A few more hours at the most, I'd say."

Draco Malfoy sagged in relief. Even though he had had a feeling that she was going to be alright from their "conversation", it was good to have it confirmed from a Healer.

"Thank you, Healer Montgomery."

The Healer patted his shoulder. "I'll have you some tea brought. It's going to be a long night if you want to wait." Draco nodded and thanked him again. There went his motto that Malfoys never thanked.

Then, when the healer had left, he let his head sink back on her arm on the bedcover.

"Merlin, Granger, I don't think you can ever make up for this kind of aggravation." But he breathed a few times deeply to calm himself. And then he fell asleep where he was.

.

.

Draco Malfoy awoke from his uncomfortable position in the morning hours with his head resting on the edge of a hospital bed because the arm that touched his head was moving. And then a warm hand was laid on his cheek. His eyes flew open and he lifted his head carefully so as not to dislodge the gentle hand. Hermione Granger was still lying on her back and the only difference was that her eyes were open. They were staring at the ceiling at the moment, though.

"Granger," Draco said gently. The brown eyes moved over to him and brightened upon his sight.

Draco was still too anxious to appreciate this subtlety, so he snarled: "About time, Granger. Do you have any idea how long I've been sitting here waiting for you to get your lazy arse back up?"

Her mouth crinkled into the hint of a grin and he felt a knock against his magic. A beat skip and a knock. Hello-o to you, too.

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Can't speak yet? Can you move your head or something?"

She shook her head infinitesimal to answer both his questions at once. "Okay, alright, Granger, get some more rest. The curse will wear off. At least you're conscious again, we can work with that."

She blinked once as if to nod her head and then closed her eyes. Her hand gave his face a pat and then slid off, falling on the bed sheet between them. Draco waited a few minutes before he was sure that she had gone back to sleep by the calm breathing.

But she was back. Merlin's beard, she was back. He had pulled her out. No, she had pulled herself out but he had pushed the helping magic into hers.

With all the tension of the last few days receding, he rested his head once more, as he had done countless times by now, on the bed between them and breathed deeply to calm his nerves. He felt tears prick his eyes and let one or two drop but no more. He was a man after all, a Malfoy. People could come in and see. He wiped his face on the bed sheet.

And then the door opened and Harry Potter himself came in, followed by his girlfriend Ginny Weasley and her brother Ron.

.

****

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_A/N: In case anybody wonders about Astoria's age (it struck me at one point), I'll calculated it as such: Harry is seventeen for Deathly Hallows, according to his birthday at the beginning of the book and Hermione eighteen. My story continues right after Deathly Hallows, so they are all eighteen now, Hermione nineteen because her birthday is in September. Astoria being two years behind her sister Daphne I figured may already have reached wizarding adulthood with her seventeenth birthday or will very soon at the end of her purposed engagement. Good?_

_Anybody still on the challenge? There were more clues in this chapter._

_Don't forget to edit and review, please. Thanks a bunch_

_M_


	22. and its consequences

_A/N: You guys, it's just a challenge, don't feel sorry. I just want to see if it's too obvious with the compow. From your responses I can see that it's not and that satisfies me. Thanks all of you who replied to my challenge. Don't forget to look out for inconsistencies in the emotional development between Draco and Hermione. If you can't find any, bully to me (grin)._

_And some credits for reviews, as always in order: articcat621, Niafadra, Forbidden1991, Lex Lina, lovelollipops, nikki98, Auelle, and VampireQueenBrittany._

_After the rollercoaster of the last chapter, our heroes have a few more magical and emotional hurdles to take. It's not all paradise yet._

_._

**Chapter 18 part 2 …and its consequences**

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**Draco's POV:**

"Malfoy! You still here?" the weasel oaf blurted out as soon as he passed the doorstep.

Potter came up and asked quietly, in his highly valued sincerity: "How is she doing?"

I watched these three people who were the most important people in her life, apart from her parents who were still in Australia and didn't know they had a daughter. And yet, I was the one who sat with her for three days straight. Something just didn't make sense here.

I cleared my throat. I was afraid it had been clogged up by sleep and my recent emotional gush. My voice still didn't sound appropriately sober when I said: "She woke up."

The Weaselette squealed and jumped forward to take Granger's hand. "Oh, Merlin, she woke up, really, did she say anything, what happened, what hit her, what happened?" she gushed.

Potter chuckled and came to the bed as well. "Ginny, give the man time to answer."

And then the greatest oaf of our time (I cannot use the word often enough. And I let Hagrid of the hook, by the way.) made his presence known by stepping up to the bed and focusing on me. "Malfoy, have you been crying? I'll mark the day in my calendar, found Draco Malfoy crying. Ha."

"Ron," Potter said sharply.

"No, no," I said. "It's okay if I step outside for a bit, to get some much needed fresh air. I've been here only for what, three days?" The weasel snorted something that sounded like "Barmy" which earned him a hit from his sister right on the sternum. He uff'd. I got up off my seat and stretched my legs properly after the night sitting on a chair. I felt my clothes loose and a bit wrinkly and even though a Malfoy doesn't smell, I felt like I could do with a shower. I moved to the side to step toward the door but the Weaselette stopped me with a hand on my arm and a sincere look in her face.

"Why would you need to step outside? Not for us, you don't." Potter inquired quietly. I rolled my eyes. Even Potter was showing his generosity. Then I sneered. "Didn't I just say that I've been here for THREE DAYS non-stop?"

"Did she really wake up, Malfoy? Then why is she still sleeping? What happened? Please, Hermione is like a sister to me." The Weaselette tried to direct the conversation into a different direction.

I was going to say, then why did you only come sporadically and didn't stay by her side like I did? But it wouldn't have been of any use, really. I couldn't bring myself to snarl at her. She was genuinely concerned for her friend. I heard how tired I was when I replied:

"Yes, she woke up. She does not have all facilities back yet. She was able to move an arm but not her head, to open her eyes but not to speak. I believe it tired her and she went simply back to sleep to recuperate." But her eyes had brightened when she saw me. That's none of your business, though, I thought.

Ginny Weasley nodded. "Thank you. I think we'll stay for a bit to see if she wakes up again. It would be good for her to see familiar faces. Alright?"

I shrugged. What was I, I wanted to challenge her? I've worked with her for five months. Don't you think she knows my face? They were her best friends, though. I didn't really have any say in the matter. It wasn't like I was her boyfriend or anything. I was just the guy who worked with her and who had been afraid that if she died he would be left out in the cold. Who was incidentally connected to her magically and who had one hell of a shag with her. None of your business either. "If you must," I said.

The weasel was the first to sit, of course. "If she's still asleep by lunchtime, do you think I can have her lunch?" he asked.

I closed my eyes and wiped my face and a smirk stole its way on it. How had she ever been able to stand this being? Granger was truly a wondrous person.

They all plunked down on chairs, turned to Granger's still form on the bed and didn't pay attention whether I was still behind them or actually left. I decided to watch their interaction for a bit. They forgot me as soon as they didn't see me anymore. Now, normally that would be very offensive for a Malfoy but in this particular situation, it served me well. And I believe it's a Slytherin trait to be able to melt entirely in the background and be forgotten as soon as you are out of side. Highly useful.

Now, at first the three best friends didn't say anything. They just settled and jiggled in their chairs, squeezing their nose bridges, wiping their faces. Then Potter ventured ahead with: "Merlin, she looks so fragile lying there. I just hope there is no permanent damage."

Fragile is right, Potter, I thought. She was fragile, slim, vulnerable. But with a mind and a spine of steel. Well, perhaps she had a bit more to learn in the spine department. But she made a lot of progress. You might know, Potter, but the weasel can have no idea of what she is capable of.

The weasel picked up the stick and ran. "Merlin, to think that we almost lost her. I can't see a life without her. Screw Lavender, I'm going to ask her to start over. We'll give it another go," he exclaimed enthusiastically and ignored the sceptic look from his sister.

Yeah, weasel, you do that. I'm sure, no, I know that she's going to love you saying that you are going to leave the other woman to start over with her again. Her face when you say that will just make my day. I love it when she scowls at you.

"You can tell her that you can't imagine a life without her but do not, under any circumstances mention Lavender," the Weaselette snarled. Aw, come on, don't tell him that. Granger will rip him to shreds and that'd be so much fun.

Potter tried to straighten the ripples. "I don't think we should be saying anything dramatic. Just that we are happy that she woke up, see what she remembers about the spell, and let her talk about her theories about the magic behind it. You know, let her get it out of her system and you know how she likes lecturing us. She'll be right as rain when she can tell us what she knows."

I scowled. They were going to play her. They were going to play into her tendency to display her knowledge to the world. 'Say nothing dramatic': they were going to coddle her. And yes, she was going to love it. This was what she liked. To be coddled and warmed and surrounded by her friends. And the weasel was going to take her back. Would she love that? She had said they were over but wasn't there a bit regret when she had said that? What would she have with me, I wondered? Snipes and coldness and brooding and nightmares. I forgot in that moment that 'we' felt right, that we made sense together. I suppose the sleep deprivation and strain of the last three days took its toll and I wasn't thinking clearly. I didn't focus on what we had but what she would miss with me. And when I looked at the socially inept ginger man she had indulged for the last seven years, I felt entirely out of place. Another first for a Malfoy man. I needed a stiff drink. To clear my thoughts.

Since nobody was paying attention to me anyway, I took one last look at Granger, sleeping peacefully, and at her slim hands that I had held for the previous three days, and snuck out the door. I turned left and walked down the Spell Damage ward, down four levels and from the entrance hall of St. Mungo's across the street to the next wizard pub. A pint wouldn't have done the trick.

.

**Hermione's POV:**

When I woke up shortly before lunch time, I felt incredibly desolate. Even though Harry and Ginny and Ron were there sitting around my bed and overly excited to see me, I felt that something, that somebody was missing.

After general testimonies of joy over my recovery all around, my brain waves slowly clicked into place again. There had been somebody else when I first opened my eyes. Somebody I had been very happy to see.

"Where's Draco?" I asked with a brittle voice. Ron's face darkened but Harry and Ginny turned around and back with surprise on their faces.

"He must have left. He was right there, behind us. Perhaps he has finally gone and taken a shower and get something real to eat. He looked like he could really use it," Harry told me.

Over my puzzled look, Ginny supplemented: "He was here for the whole time since you'd been admitted. It's been three days, Hermione. He told us that you had woken up this morning and perhaps then he left to finally take care of himself."

I still didn't understand. Draco Malfoy had done what? The cluelessness must have been in my face because Harry backed up what Ginny had said.

"That's right, Hermione. The healer was going to throw us all out after we'd brought you in, but Malfoy refused to leave and sat at your bedside for the three days until you woke up. And by the way, he carried you all the way here."

"He was here for the whole time?" I asked breathlessly. Harry and Ginny nodded.

Looking at my friends, I remembered. I remembered him talking to me. I didn't hear exactly what he said, but I heard his voice and it calmed me, even though he sounded anything but calm. When I did listen, I heard him talk about pain and Hogwarts and whining. I heard other voices, too, but couldn't understand their conversations. It had felt horrible to hear the people on the outside and not to be able to participate and make yourself known. I remembered that my first movement coming out of the spell was to touch his head, his face. I remembered touching him with my magic, I even remembered that I laughed although I was caught inside my head. I held onto my sanity because I listened to Draco Malfoy's talks and I realised that I was not alone. I realised how special it was that I could touch his with my magic because we were connected. And we had the compow. The compow. The compow had lifted the dark magic on me. It had required both of our contributions but when working all three magics it had succeeded. But why would he do that? Could he…? He wouldn't be….? He was engaged, for crying out loud. Unfortunately, I was distracted before I could finish that thought.

"It would probably look good in the Daily Prophet, "Malfoy heir cares for work partner" or some rubbish like that," Ron blustered.

Ginny cut across her brother sharply: "Ron."

I paid him as much attention as he deserved with his childish games and turned to Harry to asked what was most important to me.

"But he didn't say anything when he left? About when he was coming back, perhaps?" A small smile played around Harry's lips but he shook his head. "No, Hermione, sorry."

Ron jumped up. "Bloody hell, Hermione, you cannot want him here. Hell, forget Lavender, we'll have another go. I love you, sweetheart, I'll show you what you need to know to satisfy me. And then, you know, I'll love you to the end of time and back. We'll get married and have lots of children and you'll never have to worry about another thing. I'll do the auror training and in three years, I'll be a well-paid auror and we'll be well off. Don't you worry, I've got it all figured out." He had made his way over to my bedside, bent over me and took my hand that was resting on the bed sheet, his blue eyes full off swirling feelings. He looked so determined that I had to smile. But I held tight to my emotions to not laugh out loud in his face.

I cleared my throat. "Ron, as much as I appreciate your offer, I'm afraid I'll have to decline. I don't really want to get married right away and have a bunch of children. Heck, I'm only nineteen years old, and most of my childhood was dedicated to building Harry up for his fight against Voldemort. I want to live. I want to enjoy life, have fun, do things I never thought I would do, (have purely sexual relations for the heck of it with somebody who pleases me). So, thanks, Ron, but no thanks."

Ron dropped my hand like it was a hot potato. "You … you don't want to marry me?"

I laughed a little nervously. "Oh, that was a marriage proposal? Sorry, I misunderstood. But my answer still stands, Ron." I tried to be extra gentle. He was still my friend, I didn't want to hurt him.

But Ron's face darkened like an ominous storm cloud. "You want Malfoy, don't you?" he snarled. "I would have never thought you to be so shallow. What is it, is it his money? His status, or the fact that he's a bad boy? I heard that girls like that."

I gasped. And here I was and had been trying not to hurt him. Ginny growled: "Ron, remember what I said…" And Harry had gotten up to go to Ron's side to put a calming hand on his shoulder.

"I don't give a damn," he lashed out at his sister. "Hermione has gone over to the dark side, to shag with Malfoy and you just sit here and defend her. I'm done with all off you." He turned to the door but before he reached it, my ice-cold voice stopped him.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley, you come back here this instance."

He didn't but at least he turned and looked at me, his former girlfriend/best friend. And he looked into Harry's stumped and Ginny's incensed face. Ginny usually didn't blush but in this case, she looked as red in anger as Ron usually did in a situation of utmost embarrassment.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position to have more leverage for the tirade I had sitting on my tongue. I started very quiet in the beginning. "You take that back immediately, Ronald Weasley, or you and your children's children will be sorry for it. I put up with you and your hedonistic ways for a long, long time. I helped you out while we were in school and I fell in love with you despite the fact that your stomach would always come first. I even found something good about it. And then you left Harry and me in the middle of nowhere because you were hungry. And we struggled through, Harry and I. You later were a proud part of the 'Golden Trio' and Harry and I never said a thing, because we are your friends and we didn't hold it against you that what we did was hard. Very hard. But we did it, Harry and I, all the way through. You didn't."

Harry tried to stop my tirade before it became really hurtful. "Hermione, I don't blame him. It was really hard what we did and I couldn't have asked it of any of you. I don't blame him for not being able to see it entirely through to the end."

I ignored him. "We fell apart as a couple because I couldn't please you. You think I didn't know? How stupid do you think I am? I think I've proved time and again that I am anything but stupid. But I was a virgin, for fuck's sake. I know that you got together with Lavender again because of her ways to please men. I don't envy you your pleasure but don't you ever say anything against where I can find my pleasure."

"Oho, so you admit that you shag Draco Malfoy?" Ron blustered on.

I scrutinized him with eyes narrowed to snake slits. I started to forget why I had ever fallen in love with him. "Will you stop harping on about Draco Malfoy? He is an engaged man, and I am not having any relations with him. I am talking purely hypothetical about any man coming along giving me pleasure. Will you deny me my pleasure where you have found yours? Will you, Ronald Weasley? Want me to have a talk with your mother about what you particularly like from a woman and why? Hm?"

Ginny's ears perked up. I could see her thinking, oho, Hermione knows something that I don't. Well, good for her, I could see in her smug grin.

Ron's face reddened like it always did. One could believe that Ronald Weasley had a particular copy right to this exact shade of fire-engine red. "I don't think this is the time and place to discuss it."

I huffed. "Au contraire, Ron, this is exactly the time to discuss it. Because you will go with Harry, to find Draco Malfoy and bring him back to me. At the very least, I want to thank him for watching over me for three days, something that you didn't. And what else might or might not transpire between Draco Malfoy and me, will be none of your business and you will never breathe a negative or doubting word about us again, understood?"

"You cannot believe that I will sit by quietly when you go to shag Malfoy, the git."

I sneered. Malfoy was rubbing off on me. "No, I will certainly expect you to be nowhere near us should we ever, how did you put it so nicely, shag. But you will keep your mouth shut should I ever decide that I want to date, sleep with or even marry Draco Malfoy, as unlikely as that sounds because he is engaged. Are we clear on that?"

Ron fumed. I could see the clogs turning in his head about what he could say next to drive the point home that even though he was not going to date me anymore, he didn't want Malfoy to have me either. I knew him so well. But then, Ronald Weasley wasn't a very complicated person. Therefore, I took the first step. Fixing my eyes on my ex-boyfriend, I imitated holding a telephone to my ear (I knew he knew how to use a telephone) and simulated talking over the phone.

"Hello, Molly? This is Hermione. Yes, I'm very well, thank you. I am being well pleasured by Draco Malfoy, can you imagine? Yes, very surprised, me too. But guess what? Your son Ron, you know, he has this particular habit, …hmpf."

"Alright, alright, I get it. No need to go into details," Ron had hastily jumped forward and held a hand over my mouth to seal my lips. After a few seconds, I nodded my understanding and he let go of my face.

"So, you want me to go with Harry and find him, is that it?" Ron mumbled grumpily.

I still scowled that I had to go to the utmost threat to make him see that he had no business in deciding over my life anymore. And he was supposed to be one of my best friends. But I inhaled once and said in a clipped tone: "Yes, that's it."

Ron turned to his best mate: "Harry?"

Harry seemed to have a hard time to keep his face straight. "Ah, I wondered when you would remember me. So, you want me to go and find Malfoy, Hermione, is that it?" he imitated Ron's attitude.

"Yes, Harry. Please." For Harry, my eyes pleaded.

Harry nodded. I could see that even if he didn't agree with my choice of a (potential) partner wholeheartedly, because he was still wary about Malfoy's possible hidden intentions (and he was engaged), the fact that he had sat with me during my recovery proved some trustworthiness. And Harry would do for me whatever I asked him to. I asked him rarely enough for things that did concern me, personally. If I did now, he knew it had to be important to me. And he would appreciate that, if nothing else.

With a "Well, come on, Ron," ignoring Ron's spluttering, he got up and left the hospital room to search for a certain blond git.

.

DMHG

.

They found him in a pub a little down the road from St. Mungo's. He was about three firewhiskeys in, if one counted the glasses surrounding him, and rested his head on the bar. The position felt familiar to him. He had rested his head on a ledge for three days.

Harry and Ron sidled up to him, one on each side, and Harry put a hand on his when he tried to signal the bartender to pass him another firewhiskey.

"I think you had enough for one morning. You'll need to be able to walk straight."

Ron snorted. "Straight back to St. Mungo's, that is."

Malfoy looked at Harry with bloodshot eyes. "And why would I do that, Potter?"

Harry looked back with a straight face. "You need to go back to Hermione."

Draco Malfoy turned his face straight to the bottle shelf behind the bar. "And why's that? I can't be a friend to her like you two twats."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "I should hope not. We are more than sufficient as friends, thank you, degrading her nerves. I don't think she needs another friend." He put the emphasis on friend.

Ron sighed and snorted at the same time. It's a Weasley secret how to do that.

Malfoy still didn't look at them. He shook his head. "But she belongs to the Weasel here, doesn't she?"

Ron grumbled watching the back of the bar the same way as his adversary: "Hermione and I are long over. She was too … temperamental for me. We are better as friends. She will always be my best friend, so you better watch that you don't hurt her, because I will love to give you another punch on the nose if you do."

Draco smiled grimly: "That was you, wasn't it, the night of the battle? I thought so."

He paused, and after a minute continued. "You know, I diverted the Death Eater; I was trying to protect you, well, her actually. I couldn't have cared less about you two. You were hidden under the cloak but clearly visible with the Snargaluff juice over your heads."

There was another pause. Then Malfoy shook his head and looked down at his row of empty glasses. "Say, Potter, Granger said something about the Elder Wand the other day at your house. The cloak that you have, it couldn't be another artefact of the three brothers, could it?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. Of course, Malfoy would be well versed in wizarding lore.

"I believe it is. Why do you ask?"

"And the Potter's are descendants from the Peverell's?"

Harry nodded.

"And the ring? Does that exist, too?" The blond man still looked down.

Harry nodded again. "But I lost it. It is not good for the living to want to recall the dead."

Malfoy looked up again but not at them. "So you united the three to conquer death?"

Harry snorted. "It was a bit more complicated than that but, yeah, in a way."

"Hm," Malfoy made. "Perhaps you are smarter than I give you credit for." He paused again. "Same goes for Granger. She's a lot more than just a collection of school book knowledge." He looked around for the first time since they got there and snorted. "Not sure about the weasel here, though."

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance over Malfoy's head. So far, they had gone to find Malfoy for Hermione's sake (well, Ron under pressure, but there you have it), because she had asked them and Harry in particular would do anything for the third part of their trio. He owed her to the end of the world and back. From now on out, though, he would do something that they had never ever thought he would do. He would tell him things for Malfoy's sake. Harry leaned on the bar to stare the same way as the other two men next to him. It was a sight to behold: three men in a row staring the same way behind the bar, in three different colours: red, black and platinum blond in the middle.

With a warning glance to Ron to stay out of it, Harry tentatively asked a seemingly harmless question: "Malfoy, did you notice her Patronus on our mission before she got hit?"

Draco nodded. "Of course. Beautiful beast, her dragon."

Harry nodded in acceptance of the answer: "Do you know the meaning of it? Her Patronus used to be an otter, remember?" Ron nodded sagely.

Draco stared at the two of them in turn.

Harry plodded on: "Did you ever cast a Patronus?"

Malfoy shook his head in decline: "No, not a corporeal one. Only silver wisps." He looked bitter when he said the next sentence. "Not enough happy thoughts to choose from, I suppose."

Harry nodded his head once again: "What do you think which form yours would take? With your name?"

Draco Malfoy was stunned. And for once in his life he forgot that Potter and Weasley were not his friends and to sneer at them: "What does it mean?"

Harry patted his shoulder. "It means that you should quickly go back to her." He fished a few Galleons from his pocket and slapped them on the bar.

"I can pay for my own spirits, Potter." Malfoy sneered in reaction.

Harry Potter shrugged. "I know you can, Malfoy. But so can I."

And then he got up and with a jerk of his head motioned Ron to follow him out.

.

.

Ginny had used the time Harry and Ron were gone searching for the elusive Draco Malfoy to get a notion of the situation from Hermione's point of view. The last thing Ginny knew was that Malfoy was engaged and Hermione incredibly heartbroken over it (even if she didn't admit it). Then they were thrown together to take advantage of their compow for another fight and when she was hit, he freaked and then stayed at her side until she woke up. Then he left without a word and without notice and now Hermione asked her friends to go find him. Something didn't up here.

Ginny asked slyly: "So what do you know about Ron? What habit does he have?"

Hermione shook her head sadly:" You know, Ginny, that I can't tell you that."

But Ginny was undeterred and pushed the question that interested her most right behind: "How about you tell me then, what you think why Malfoy stayed with you while you were out cold?"

Hermione tried to shrug nonchalantly but Ginny not only had seen better shrugs (she had (or had had in case of Fred, bless his soul) two brothers who had made a science out of acting inconspicuously, trying to mask their newest practical joke), she didn't believe for a second that Hermione had no idea. She said as much.

"If you want to act like you have no idea what I'm talking about, you have to get up earlier than that. Remember who my brothers are or were. Given the circumstances, you knocked out by a dark spell and all, I give you a grace shrug, and now you are going to tell me exactly what goes through your head with regards to Draco Malfoy. Hm?"

Ginny was infuriating, Hermione thought. How was she going to tell her that she and Draco had had spectacular sex and that he subsequently had gone and proposed to Astoria, only because she had misunderstood his intentions and now they were in a big mess? And that she was touched beyond words that he had stayed with her while she was imprisoned in her own head? And a little hopeful? And that she hoped there was redemption for her, because she hadn't seen what was right in front of her the whole time because her overly busy brain had refused to see it?

"Ginny," Hermione tried to stall.

Said girl sighed. "Alright, Hermione, I'll make it easy for you. I'll tell you my perspective, alright? And you can tell me where I go wrong. So, you were connected to Malfoy in sixth year, acting your usual self-sacrificing self. You didn't think for a second that you could ever develop any feelings whatsoever for the git, but you wanted to help him. You two adjuncted. I don't need to know the finer details of what happened during your seventh year but after the war was over and you started working together, you explored your connection and became closer. Right, so far?"

Hermione swallowed. Ginny's telling was fairly accurate.

Ginny nodded. "I take that as a 'yes'. He dated other witches but failed to make a decision as to who he would share his life with, meanwhile becoming cosier with you. That can only mean two things: one, he couldn't find a witch who would scratch his itch thoroughly enough for the rest of his live, which is unlikely; or two, he developed feelings for you but given your muggleborn status and our antagonistic history with Malfoy, he couldn't say it openly and you two were having a secret love affair. Let me know when it goes off track, will you?"

Hermione swallowed again and nodded. Ginny was creepy. She considered correcting the finer points in Ginny's story, because they had not been having a secret love affair. But correcting as much came close to admitting the rest and she wanted to wait what Ginny's conclusion was going to be.

"Ergo, something happened in your love affair, be it that he wanted more or you wanted more. And then he went to propose to Astoria. And you went into the blues. I'd say, he wanted more and you rejected him and then you felt guilty. I just remembered your dream, wasn't there something about rejection in there?"

Hermione nodded again. Her eyes and brain became very heavy all off a sudden, having her entire mistake pointed out so painstakingly. It felt like the whole weight of her guilt came crashing down on her.

"Then you have to work together one more time and when you get hit, he flips out, defeats the attackers almost single handled in a cold fury that has to see its likes and was a little extreme even for a Malfoy, with lights illuminating him that made him look like a Christmas tree. Even though he shimmered in blue and purple. Not a bad colour combination at all. After defeating the Death Eaters, he hurries back to your side, pushes Ron out of the way, frantically tries to pull you out of the spell, and when that is unsuccessful, carries you to St. Mungo's and refuses to leave you until you awoke again. I wonder what he did while he was here and if your compow has something to do with your awakening, but the more important question is, what did he want from you and why did you reject him? I have an idea in light of his behaviour but I'd rather have you say it." Ginny grinned openly, having deduced the whole shebang, but her brown eyes pierced Hermione's to tell her she would not escape giving an explanation.

Hermione had been about to tell her friend some finer details about the seventh year, namely that Malfoy had taken part of her pain from the Cruciatus. She had suggested taking his pain the first time they had met in that classroom at night and he had gone ahead and done it first. And he had given her comfort when she had been upset over Ron's behaviour. There had been an odd camaraderie in sixth year between them after the night in the classroom. But her mouth fell open until her jaw clicked when she heard Ginny's telling, and she couldn't close it again: "Draco did what?"

Ginny grinned broadly, endangering her jaw likewise: "What are you referring to? His fighting or his staying with you?"

"The fighting," Hermione clarified, managing to close her mouth again.

"He fought them like he wanted to smash them to smithereens. Harry had us hang back, so we wouldn't interfere and we wouldn't be hit by Malfoy's spells. He pulled out the spells so fast that we could only see blurs of light, not actual movement." Ginny reported, observing Hermione at the same time.

Hermione let her head sink back in her pillow and stared at the ceiling. He had pulled the extra strength of the compow, which had worked because she had been there, although unconscious. That wasn't incredible. But he had been furious that she had been hit and worried about her health. And he hadn't left her side until he had known that she would recover. Did that mean he had actual feelings for her? Had she actually stomped on a very tender bud of blossoming feelings when she had told him what to do with his 'myth'? And how about her feelings? Did she, could she feel something for the git who had tormented her all through her school time? What was it with the boys who teased girls? He had bullied her until the night in the classroom and after that he had resisted. Was it reasonable to be with Draco Malfoy? Reason has nothing to do with it, a small voice spoke up in her mind.

Being with Draco Malfoy, how would that make her feel? Whole, the tiny voice in her head answered her. Cherished, her heart murmured. Mmhmmhmmh, her stomach piped up, clenching. Well, her brain reluctantly grumbled, there was a certain aspect of appropriate intellectual stimulation. And remember how you panicked when the Dementors closed in on him? 'That was normal, though', she chided, 'I wouldn't wish on anybody to be de-souled by Dementors.' And what about your Patronus, hm? The tiny voice in her head whispered again. Remember its form? Its NEW form?

Hermione closed her eyes, buried her face in her hands and groaned. It was too much, she had just woken up from a dark spell, she couldn't deal with this, she ….

"Hermione?" Ginny tentatively interrupted her thoughts. "Are you alright?"

"No," Hermione answered through her hands.

Ginny sat tenderly on the edge of Hermione's bed and stroked her shoulders. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't mean to upset you with this. You don't have to answer me, alright? I just wanted to tell you not to deny your feelings if you have any for him. If you're in love with him, go for it. I'm sure there is a way around betrothal bonds. Don't deny him because you think, we won't approve. I told you, we'll come around. If he's good for you, then I will personally kick Ron's and Harry's butts for objecting, okay? Don't cry, Hermione, please, don't cry."

Hermione took her hands away from her face. "I'm not crying, Ginny. Thanks for your understanding. But please stop insinuating that I'm in love with Draco Malfoy, alright? If I had any feelings for Draco Malfoy, you'd be the first to know. I'm very tired now, I think, I'll take another nap, alright?"

Ginny scrutinized her. She knew it wouldn't be good to let Hermione escape into her thoughts and denial again. But she had pushed her quite thoroughly today; perhaps it was alright to let it sink in for a bit? She could always pick it up again when she saw Hermione the next time. As long as Draco Malfoy wasn't married yet, because then it would be really too late. But there was still time. She exhaled.

"Alright, sweetie, take a rest. I'll watch over you until the boys come back, alright?"

Hermione nodded and turned on her side, away from Ginny, to relax.

Ginny went back to her chair and hung in her thoughts. She revolved thoughts in her mind, trying to remember, to find anything she had ever heard about resolving wizard betrothal bonds. She hoped there was a way.

.

Ginny had barely sat 15 minutes when Harry and Ron came back. Hermione had gone back to sleep. Ginny's head swivelled when her black haired boyfriend stepped through the door. "Did you find him?"

Harry nodded. "He should be about five minutes behind us. I believe we gave him enough incentive to come back. But I suppose he'll need five minutes to decide for himself."

Ron grumbled: "I still can't believe she could be good with Malfoy of all people. To me, he's still the slimy git he used to be in school."

Ginny hissed: "To you, Hermione was a girlfriend who was supposed to pleasure you. You didn't care zilch for what she wanted. You still have no clue. Married and children. With Hermione's brain, she should become the next Minister of Magic or invent world peace or something. Wanker."

"Hey," Ron objected but didn't say more. He wasn't as stupid as he, more often than not, behaved. He understood that Hermione and he had started with wrong criteria for a relationship and that it simply had not worked out. It most definitely was not Hermione's fault, he knew that. He knew that Hermione was a great woman, one of the best, and he didn't want Malfoy to have her. Why should Malfoy get a break after all he'd done? But he also understood that he had no saying in the whole business, really.

Harry interrupted his thoughts when he asked: "How is she doing?"

Ginny looked sheepish: "I tried to figure out what it is with her and Malfoy but it was too much for her and she went back to sleep."

"Any questions that I certainly wouldn't answer?" a snide voice came from the doorway. Ginny startled and turned around.

Draco Malfoy came in, frowning, and made his way with a quick stride to Hermione's bed and looked at her sleeping form. "She looks worse than when I left. What did you do, put the thumb screws on her?" he hissed at Ginny accusingly. He put a hand on Hermione's cheek and stared at her. The two siblings and their friend knew enough by now to assume that he was diving into his and Hermione's magic to feel her whereabouts.

Ginny looked upset and a little guilty, so that Harry stepped up to her and put an arm around her waist to support her. "N..no, I just …." She looked to Harry seeking more support.

"Spare me," Malfoy interrupted. "Do you know what spell she had on her?"

All three shook their heads. "Its incantation is 'Katatonici' and it imprisons the targets in their own minds. Subjects have gone mad after mere hours and she was under it for three days. So before you put Granger under any pressure again, you wait until she has fully recovered."

All three nodded their heads, indicating that they had understood.

Malfoy continued. "You are not good for her right now. Get out."

Ron gulped and was about to snarl that he was not going to be ordered around by a Malfoy, especially not when it concerned Hermione but Harry put a restraining hand on him. Harry smiled a tiny smile and grabbed Ginny's and Ron's forearms and dragged them to the door. "We'll leave you to it, then."

"Out, Potter." Malfoy snarled.

Now Harry grinned fully. "Certainly, Malfoy." And pulling his girlfriend and his best mate, her brother, behind, he closed the door from the outside with the good feeling that Hermione was being taken care off.

.

.

**Draco's POV:**

I settled back in my chair that had been my support for the last three days and watched Granger sleep. At least I knew she was sleeping know. So, I had lied a bit to drive the point home. I didn't know if people had gone mad while under this particular curse but the way Goyle had described it, I could well imagine that some people had. And who cared whether I lied to Potter and his wanker of a mate?

Potter. I came to understand that Potter was in a league entirely of his own. He had rejected me the first time I had offered my hand but I couldn't really blame him for that. Merlin, Voldemort had killed his parents and my father was clearly supporting the maniac. How would that have looked? And even though Potter didn't know which side I was on the first time we met, he must have sensed something off with me. Potter was not weak at all. I had always assumed, supported by my family's teaching, that these people who do not seek power are weak. But Potter had his power, there was just no reason for him to seek it. He had a strangely balanced kind of power that you only felt when he was off kilter, when he was angered. Potter wouldn't do anything in cold blood. He would have to be driven by his need to help, by a desperation to better the world, to counterbalance the malice that had taken his family. Like Dumbledore. And it wasn't weak at all. It was just not my way.

And that brought up the question why I had stayed with Granger for her recovery. I couldn't explain it really. A Malfoy would never lower himself to care for somebody else not belonging to the immediate family, heck, to care actually. That was unheard of and something we considered house-elves to be good for. But this was different. I just knew when she had been hit that I needed to stay at her side. That I couldn't budge; I knew that I would weather all gossip resulting from the fact that I as an engaged man sat at another woman's side; that for once in my life I had to forgo all comfort and sit on an uncomfortable hospital chair for three days to watch her unconscious body for signs of recovery. Driven by need. Driven.

Like she had been driven. Driven by the panic of the Dementors overwhelming me. She had sent out her Patronus to save me. That wasn't incredible as such. We had worked closely, I would have expected anybody on the light side to do that. Heck, even I would have done that (had I been able to cast a Patronus), and I would have saved even Lavender Brown, the vulture. Or the weasel. Nobody deserved a fate of the Dementors sucking your soul out of you.

Her Patronus had been huge, though, gargantuous. Totally opposite of her slim body. It made sense in a way because the huge dragon had reflected the immense power she was able to wield with her small body. And Potter had said it had changed. And that he would expect my personal Patronus to have the same shape. I knew of course that, driven by delight, a Patronus would reflect your own emotional state. And that for that reason it could change. I knew that theoretically because I had no actual experience. None of Voldemort's followers had ever cast a Patronus. Requiring happy thoughts they had considered it a weakness, a whimsical, fragile magic. I suspected that this view came after the fact that they discovered they were not able to cast one. There were other ways to protect yourself against Dementors, one of course being that they can't find anything in you that they can thrive on. That was another reason why we considered them weak, these hoping light seekers. You made yourself vulnerable to dark creatures, when you opened yourself to whimsical things like hope and love. I hadn't understood yet that it strengthened you incredibly as well.

When Granger's Patronus adjusted to her emotional change by changing its form, did that mean that her emotional world included me? Was that why Potter had sent me back? Was Potter clear sighted to see things that others didn't? Did he see her needing me like I needed her in my life; to balance me out, to counter my sharp edges, to exhilarate me, to bring me equilibrium? Could it be? Could I give her something that she needed, for a change?

She had made it quite clear that she didn't see us together. I had called her out on her own fear of rejection. But it had been a shot in the dark, although there might have been some truth to it. Was she afraid that she could fall for me and I could reject her, like I had shown her all our lives that she was a lower being? Oh, Gawds, I had certainly done a trick on her, hadn't I? I had told her time and again that she was beneath me. And it had been true at the time in my world. How was she supposed to know that it wasn't true anymore, that I wouldn't turn on her again? But the world had changed, had changed me and she had changed me. Didn't she realize that? Apparently not. She had shown me a power I never knew had such a hold over me: the power of acceptance. She had accepted me, faults and all, as a man who fought for his survival, for his place in the world, a man who wasn't evil. But I had never shown openly her how it had affected me. And for that reason I had needed to stay with her, to keep the compow whole, I felt it was essential. It was very atypical for a Malfoy to watch somebody's bed side (I can't say it enough) but I didn't have much of a choice in this. I felt compelled to balance the sheet somewhat, to give something back to Granger who had given me so much. I was shocked at this totally new altruistic feeling in me but it wasn't unpleasant. And talking about pleasure:

Granger made a tiny moan that just escaped her lips and I caught myself staring at her lips again. Amongst many things, I had missed the feel and the taste of her lips. And the way they had responded to my kiss. Scorching hot, her kisses had been. I shuddered just thinking of them. Of course I had kissed before, many times that is, and I had never heard any complaints with regards to my kissing technique. But the way Granger had pushed her lips on and moulded them to mine and moved and nipped and tongued and licked and bit me had set me on fire. When we had been together the one time, I had to hold onto me not to laugh out loud when Granger turned out to be quite masterful in tiny love bites. The weasel had said as much the hapless night at the club. It was so typical of the Ginger that he couldn't appreciate her skills. The same went with her hands in my hair. I was used to women wanting to dig their hands in my hair. Its platinum blond strands simply fascinated women and they wanted to see how it felt when they had the chance. But they usually ran their fingers through it for their own pleasure. Granger had massaged my scalp and when she had noticed how much I liked it she had done it again, for my pleasure.

She had clearly not been very experienced. But for only having done it three times before, she had been surprisingly confident in what she knew. She had known exactly how to hold my cock and where to put her thumb. I had had to stop her or I would have come right on her hand, I wasn't kidding. On the other hand, nobody could deny that Granger was a very fast learner. I wondered how quickly she would learn to use that supple ring of rosy lips ….

I had to shift in my chair to disperse some discomfort. With my changed position, my eyes wandered from her lips further up her face and I was startled to see that her eyes were open and staring at me. I felt heat rise in my face. Good thing, she couldn't read my thoughts; that would have been embarrassing given their lustful nature. Had she seen me staring at her lips all the time?

"Granger" I said quietly. "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough to see you staring at me," she replied with a soft voice. "And to see you blush now."

The heat in my face intensified. "I don't blush," I tried to play it off.

"Oh, my mistake then," she gave back. "And here I was thinking that the healthy glow to your usually pale face was a blush. So sorry, Malfoy."

I smirked. I couldn't help it. I enjoyed how she put me always on the spot. Nobody else but my closest friends dared to do that. I wondered what she would say if she ever saw my erection again and I flat out denied it. Probably something like "Well, somebody must have installed a nice handle on your front, then, Malfoy. Care if I use it?" I chuckled, lost in my thoughts. She raised her eyebrows and sat up in bed.

"What's so funny?" she wanted to know.

"Your sarcastic reply, Granger."

"Oh? Am I funny?" she eyed me wearily and rolled on her back, disrupting the eye contact. She had to have heard that I stayed with her by now. If she hadn't realized it from my speaking to her, I was certain that the Weaselette would have told her. But for all she knew, I was still an engaged man and therefore, she must have been wary of my intentions. And I couldn't blame her because I wasn't quite certain of that myself. It depended on what she wanted. I only knew that I needed to be closer to her. I stood up and took the step over to her bed. I leaned over her and put my fists next to her legs under the cover, so that my face was right in front of hers. Her glance became wary but I didn't budge.

"Yes, you can be very funny," I spoke right in her face.

"Ugh," she said, smelling my breath. "You already had firewhiskey."

"Yes, well," I said, not moving an inch. "Last time you seemed to enjoy it, so I thought I'd try it again."

Her eyes widened because of my allusion to our romp. "Why would you need firewhiskey before lunch time?"

"Well, you see, after I've been sitting here for three days, watching over you, your ex-boyfriend had to comment on the fact how barmy that was and that he was going to propose to you to get back together. And it made my stomach churn so much I needed something to calm it."

Granger snorted. "Propose he did."

I stopped short. "He did what?" I growled.

She giggled. "He proposed. Well, in a way. He told me he would marry me and I wouldn't have to worry about a thing again. As if I would end up an old maid tomorrow if he didn't do it." She rolled her eyes. "We would have many children and would be well off with his auror salary in three years." She giggled again and stretched back in her pillow.

I felt the entire healthy glow go out of my face again. I would have never figured he would go to that length. "And what did you say?"

She sniggered. "Well, I couldn't quite laugh outright in his face, so I let him down gently at first and when he flew off the handle for me rejecting his "proposal" I told him to go take a hike." She imitated quotations marks with her hands with the word proposal.

I breathed again. She was not going to go back to the weasel. Oh, mother of Merlin, that would have been the death of me. And she was doing quite well in the spine department, I was pleased to say. I couldn't quite hide my shock and subsequent relief, though, therefore I sniped: "Well, you are good at rejecting, aren't you?"

That sobered her immediately. And back to the wary eyes. Damn, I should make a habit of biting my lip until I think the things through that I say. Especially to Granger, if I didn't want to hurt her with my snide remarks. I looked down on the bed sheet between my hands.

"I'm sorry, Granger. I didn't mean it quite as harsh as it came out." I looked up to see her reaction.

Her eyes widened again. "Did you just apologize to me?"

I grinned thinly. "No, that can't be right."

She smiled. "I believe you did."

I smiled grimly. "I believe you are mistaken, as Malfoys don't apologize. I believe I've told you that repeatedly. Keep up, Granger, will you? For a woman of your intelligence I shouldn't have to repeat myself quite so often."

She chuckled. Lying on her pillow, her wild hair spread out around her head, she looked up at me and laughed. It was as welcoming as she always had been whenever she came to my rescue and I had a hard time not to jump on her right then and snog her senseless. It was so much better to see her laughing at me than to see her shocked or angry.

"Did you really stay with me for the entire three days I was out?" she asked quietly when she had calmed, just in time because my muscles were already tightening for the jump. I nodded and looked down on the bed again. She didn't need to see that I was blushing again.

"Why?" she asked.

I snorted. So like her to put the finger right on it. "Granger, are you thick? Nobody else on your side wants anything to do with me. You're my only ticket. I would never make it back into society without your good word in Potter's ear. And if I didn't have you, who'd show me how to keep my mouth shut when Weasley makes a fool of himself again?"

What I didn't say was: you were the first to believe in me, to see that there might be a different Draco than the one I showed everybody. You saw the smartness in me and not only the person who constantly tried to avoid failure. You supported me when I used my brain and didn't follow blindly into the dark, stumbled after the idiots crouching before Voldemort. And if I didn't have you anymore I wouldn't know how I can get away from the old Draco that I don't want to be anymore; how I can get away from something that's so easy because it's so familiar. You reached out to give me a hand, to pull me over, you are my tether to the new life I want to create, for when I'm afraid to let go of the old one. But she must have seen something in my eyes when I looked up at the end of my reply because her warm eyes took on a baleful glance while she listened to me, as if she had a toothache. Why did it make her so sad that I needed her and as good as admitted it?

"What about your fiancée?" she asked quietly. Did I hear trepidation in her voice?

"There is no fiancée anymore," I admitted quietly, looking down again. I couldn't stand seeing pain or sadness in her eyes. She inhaled sharply.

"Excuse me?" I looked up into her total incredulity. "How did that happen?"

I frowned. Could I take away her pain? "Well, when I didn't come home after the last mission, she came to me. She saw me bent over your prone body, cried "cheater", what a change from "traitor" I say, threw the engagement jewel, I say jewel because it's actually too large for a ring, dramatically on the floor, and stormed out. Her father came in with his wand held high, avadad me, missed and was killed by his own spell ricocheting of the window. And that was the end of it. Since it could be proven that the spell came from his own wand, the Wizengamot decided that I was not guilty, for once, and ruled that I could remain here, by your bedside, not betrothed."

I was a good liar. I'd always been. The only problem as a child had been that my father was a better liar, so he always saw through my lies and punished me none the less. But I could tell that Granger seriously tried to separate the wheat from the chaff. She gave up after a few seconds and started giggling. I kept my face in a frown but it cost some effort. I'd done it. No more pain in her eyes.

"You want to tell me that the Wizengamot came together in my room to sit over your guilt of the death of Astoria's father? While I was knocked out?"

"Not in your room," I scoffed. "Of course, I had to go over to the Court rooms in the Ministry. They shackled me to the wall for the duration of the trial, what with the charge being murder and all. The trial fortunately took only half an hour, so I was back in forty-five minutes. I still have the marks on my wrists from the shackles, though, care to see?"

She grinned. She had figured it out, I'd put it on too thick. "I'd rather see the shackling aspect of the trial."

I choked and then coughed. Perhaps it wasn't as easy to predict what she was going to say after all. When I had regained my breath, I teased her again.

"You can try shackling me to the bed. I didn't much care for the hanging part of it. And the walls are rather uncomfortably cold in the dungeons."

"Oh, I didn't say I wanted to make it comfortable for you, did I? And how on earth could you have been thinking about anything to do with a bed?" she shot her repartee.

I chuckled. Merlin, I'd missed this; the fact that she grabbed me by the balls as soon as I opened my mouth. I couldn't wait for her to do it literally. But I had to tread carefully. Just because we had shagged once, didn't mean she was prone to do it again. She had to find it in herself first.

"Honestly, Astoria was here, saw me at your side and decided that she was better off without me. She broke off our engagement. We'll have to see what we can do about the magical bond but I'm fairly certain there will be precedence cases. She's going to take Theodore Nott."

"Theo? And does Theo want her?"

"I believe so. Why?" I furrowed my forehead. I wasn't aware that Granger was on a first name base with Nott.

"Is she a good woman?" She ignored my question. I kept my gaze straight on her. What was it with her and Nott?

I thought back to Astoria letting me cry on her chest, cry over another woman. Astoria had a great heart after all. "Yes," I said.

"And Theo likes her?"

"Yes, I believe so. He hinted at it. What's with the questions, Granger?" I said dangerously quiet.

She turned her head away from me. "Theo and I became closer over an Ancient Runes project in sixth year. He said that if I hadn't been a muggleborn, he would have actually liked going out with me. He said he couldn't risk his family's reputation by dating a muggleborn. Those were dangerous times, but in better times he said, he would have done it in a heartbeat. And he was sincere. I wish him the very best. I truly hope Astoria is right for him."

I growled. "Was that before or after you pulled me out of my misery in the classroom?"

She glanced back at me. "After," she breathed.

I growled again. Theo Nott had stretched his hands out for her. He had tried to touch what was supposed to be mine.

"So, in between whining for the weasel and saving me from soul meltdown, you had time to befriend Theo Nott, did I get that right?"

She smiled. "Yes, just about. Why, Malfoy, are you jealous?"

I growled more severely. She snickered. When I must have looked like I was going to pull down the entire room in my wrath she put her hands on my face and sat up again, leaning into it. My breath hitched. Was she going to kiss me?

"So, you are really not engaged anymore?"

"Let's say, we are as good as disengaged and both partners agree."

"So, I wouldn't matter if I kissed you now? It wouldn't be considered cheating?"

My heart skipped a beat. "Not at all," I said and leaned a little closer.

"Because I wouldn't want to be called a cheater, a homewrecker, a slut for breaking up …" She moved her head steadily closer while talking.

"Granger, is there a point to your rambling?" I snapped, interrupting her.

"Just making sure," she breathed, about two millimetres away from my mouth.

"Well, get on with it," I breathed and closed the gap. The moment my lips touched hers, I knew this was it. I would never, ever kiss another woman again. Not like this. If Granger didn't want me forever, I would lead a celibate life and shag without kissing from now on.

She still smelled like roses even after three unconscious days in a hospital bed. There were other bodily smells but they didn't deter from her rose scent. They combined well with it and I liked it. I imagined this was how she would smell in the mornings after waking up. I couldn't wait to find out. Her lips were as soft as I remembered and as pliable and as giving and taking. She pulled up my shoestrings with the way her lips nipped and pulled on mine, sucked me in and laved me with her tongue. And some body parts were pulled up, too. I pushed further into her and she let herself sink back into her pillow again, never letting go of my lips. So with my pushing and her sinking it took a few seconds before she had nowhere to go anymore and I had to move up my arms to take some weight of her. I put them right next to her head and moved my hands into her hair, letting single strands glide through my fingers. And her lips over my lips. I alternated between smoothing my lips over hers and diving into her mouth like I wanted her to swallow me whole. Like she had done with my magic the night of the adjunction. I wanted her to take me in and close her legs around me again, pull me down, so I could sink in to the hilt. I wanted to experience the ultimate bliss with her again, the colour inferno that made my head explode and lasted to eternity when I came in her. Not because I was an adrenaline junky. But because it was right. It felt so right how she had taken me into her, accepted me again and again. I was so sick of always being pushed back, to be put down, to never be good enough and at the same time having to live like I was above all else. It didn't make sense. But it felt right to be here, with her.

Granger whimpered under me and exhaled into my mouth. Sweet and warm it felt. And when I felt her tongue between my lips again, wriggling its way into my mouth finding its counterpart, the electric shock from the touch shot down all the way into my toes and back up to where it counted the most. I felt a painful twitch in my trousers and I climbed on the bed over her, shoes and all, because I needed the friction of her body under mine. She welcomed me by stretching out lasciviously and digging her hands in my hair, scraping my scalp. I groaned into her mouth over the pleasure it created and felt my groin undulating of its own accord. My kisses became frantic and my tongue tried to touch hers everywhere at once and I was so close to rip the bed cloth out from between us and her sleep wear away from her divine body, free my shaft from its enclosure and sink it into her until I reached the end, when a door clap startled us back into reality.

At first, being so thoroughly distracted by Granger sucking me in, I didn't pay it any mind. But not only did we have to separate eventually before passing out for lack of oxygen but Granger actually turned her head away to look at the door. Bereft of my kissing target, I aimed in on the side of her mouth and slid down to her neck and the opening of her sleepwear where I knew she hid the most perfect pair of tits I had ever seen. I didn't have a chance to tell her last time but her perfectly round and perk breasts with the smooth teat, just made for suckling and licking blissfully, and the easily erect nipples were a work of art, as far as I was concerned. I would have to tell her eventually. Preferably when I was bedded right between them.

Before I could go any further, Granger's hands stopped me. She took my head and held it still: "Malfoy, as much as I hate to say it but we have to stop. I think there was somebody at the door."

It took me a few seconds to come back down to earth, breathing heavily. Hate to say it, she had said. She had enjoyed it. Granger had enjoyed my attentions. Not that I hadn't noticed from her response but it was good to hear her say it. There was hope, wasn't there? I exhaled sharply and shook my head to clear it. In my book, we needn't have stopped at all.

There was a knock on the door. I exchanged a look with Granger's warm brown eyes, bright as the morning sun in June, in her flushed face, with her lips that looked thoroughly kissed. She smirked regretfully at me and motioned with her head for me to climb down from her. Awww.

I did as indicated with a snort and after I had sorted my rumbled clothes and sat down on my chair on the side of her bed away from the door and after she had pulled her ruffled hair together in a loosely held pony tail, she called "Enter".

In stepped the bale of her existence, one Lavender Brown, accompanied by her friend Parvati Patil. Now, I have to say that Patil and her twin sister always looked like a good shag. They were flirty, the Gryffindor twin even more than the Ravenclaw, pretty and approachable. Numerous boys at Hogwarts had dreamed of having these two in a double pack. I should know; I was one of them. Living in a co-ed school in your years of growing up gives you plenty material for multiple wet fantasies. And I observed the looks of the other boys when one of the twins walked by, for the same reason; I was looking the same way. But when she came in with Brown (the nerve of the woman) she did nothing for me. My hard-on that I kept carefully hidden sitting behind Granger's bed and by squeezing it between my legs, was for one woman only. The one with the swollen lips lying on the bed in front of me.

"Hermione," Brown squealed barging into the room. Both she and her friend stopped in their track when they saw me sitting at Granger's side. But only for a split-second and then they continued on their way to embrace Granger like she was a long lost daughter. She took it in stride and embraced the two women back.

After they had settled on the chairs left behind by Potter and consorts, Patil blurted out: "So, Hermione, how are you feeling? When we heard that you had woken up, we had to come right over. I mean, we shared a dorm together at Hogwarts, we are friends, aren't we?"

Ah. That explained why they even dared to come here. They did have a connection to her. But I knew that they were Gossip queens, first and foremost. They never had Pansy's finesse but if you needed information, they could provide. They couldn't fool me for one second that they were concerned for Granger's health, especially Brown. They were hungry for the gossip. My presence in Granger's sick room was a royal feast for their gossip thirst. It wouldn't do to have them spread it around before we had a chance to tell Astoria's parents. Which by the way, I should do very soon before the story spread over the wizarding world on its own accord. I stood up.

"Well, Granger," I intervened before she could say anything. "I should get going. Good to see you up and about, and since you have company now, I have an errand to run. I expect you back at training in a few days. Let me know in advance, so that I can arrange my schedule." I put on the pompous Malfoy they knew from Hogwarts and I hoped Granger got my message. She looked confused for a second that I so suddenly wanted to leave after our kiss-cum-almost-shag. But when I moved my eyes to the corner where the two gossip birds sat and back to her, I could see at the glint in her eyes that she had understood.

"Certainly, Malfoy. I appreciate that you came by to check on my well-being. Yes, I expect to be back at work no later than the day after tomorrow. I will let you know tomorrow at the latest if I will be discharged or not. Best to you."

I inclined my head regally and made my way to the door. I hadn't quite stepped through properly when the two bints assailed Granger.

"Oh, Hermione, what was he doing here? Is it true that he guarded your bed side for the days you were unconscious? Oh, how romantic. And he makes such a fine figure. I know he's the bad guy Malfoy but what a body. I wouldn't mind at all to see his fit physique for once." That came from Brown. I snorted. You'd be old and half-way rotten before I gave you a chance to see my 'physique'. Vulture. And weren't you dating a certain weasel?

"But what about his fiancée? Is it true that she left him? Did he leave her? For you?" I could hear the incredulity in their voices as they both spoke at once. I closed the door and went on my way before I would storm back in and set them straight. And I had to go to Astoria to tell her parents. I wanted to be free for a future. They had no idea, these stupid bints.

.

.

I came back in the evening, hoping that the long line of visitors that was certain to stop by, now that Hermione Granger had awoken out of magically induced slumber, had somewhat dispersed. I had gone home to finally shower and change and eat a decent meal. My mother was nowhere to be found in the house, it was her time to visit father in Azkaban. The house-elves had outdone themselves to offer something delicious. It had taken as usual about five minutes for Gwenny to find and join me. Well behaved as she was, she hadn't jumped on the table, although the salmon dish was one of her favourites, but settled on a chair to my left and watched me eat. I left her a decent portion of the fish to eat in the kitchen later. She loved sitting in the kitchen, watching the house-elves scurry back and forth doing their work.

I had turned to her when I had finished my meal and dabbed my mouth with my napkin: "Well, Gwenny, would you approve if I hooked up with Granger? You remember Granger, bushy-haired, pretty face, rosy lips, smart as a whip, the one who dragged you out from under the dresser?" Gwenny had twitched her tail and observed me a little sceptical. I had sighed and stretched out my hand to scratch her behind the ear. She had liked that.

"Yes, I know, it took me a while to realize her worth. And to discard the blood issue. But you know how it is with inbred traditions." I had sighed again. Gwenny had purred being so nicely scratched.

"Did you sleep on my bed as usual? I'm sorry that I didn't come home but I couldn't leave her. I just physically couldn't. I felt like I was glued to her side. I needed to be there, to keep the compow alive, to give her extra energy, to make sure that she was going to be alright. And it's possible that I'll stay away for a bit again." I had rubbed my forehead in incredulity. "But if I manage to gain Granger's trust then I'll either bring her here eventually, so you can get to know her, or we'll go visit her. She has a cat as well, you know. His name is Crookshanks and he's a quite likable fellow. I think you would enjoy his company. Well, first things first. I have to go see the Greengrasses." I had sighed one more time and rubbed my face in my palms. It was not going to be easy.

But it had been less of a hassle as I had expected it to be. Certainly, Mr and Mrs Greengrass had received us in their Drawing room and apparently prepared by the gossip already swirling around, had greeted us with stern faces. We gave a good picture, Astoria and I walking in and they looked a bit smug after we had presented our case. We didn't tell them that I had (in all likelihood) feelings for another woman. We told them a (well prepared) story of how Theo Nott was so unhappy that I had snatched Astoria from him (quite) and that her affections were misplaced toward him. And the noble character that I was (cough) I didn't want to hinder the love couple to come together. I'm fairly certain they didn't believe a word of our fairy tale but what could they do? They only thing they did, banking on the magic binding us. As all born and bred purebloods do, they believed that it was futile to fight against magic as strong as a magical bond. So, they had agreed to the break of our betrothal but, and Mrs Greengrass had looked particularly smug when they had added, ONLY if we were able to dissolve our magical bond. I hadn't blinked. I received the verdict with the proper pureblooded poise and we took our leave. Astoria was frantic. She couldn't believe that her parents could be so cruel. I understood them perfectly. If you could have a King for a son-in-law (in comparison, not that I had any entitlement to a throne) why would you agree to an Earl? Screw your daughter's happiness. Not that these noble titles that were sparsely distributed in our magical families meant anything, really, in the magical world but with the Malfoy connections, notoriety and enterprises we had certainly more political and societal weight than the Notts. I had tried to calm Astoria, saying there would have to be a way and with Granger back in play, we were sure to find it. She was the queen of research. If somebody could find something out, she would.

Fortunately, no visitor was in her room anymore when I returned but Granger looked thoroughly exhausted as she rested with closed eyes on her bed. I gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, received a weak hand wave that signalled her acknowledgement and placed myself back in my chair, my constant hospital friend. I asked her who else had come to visit and she mumbled about the Weasley clan and Luna and Neville but by the slur in her speech I realized how worn out she was.

Later a Healer stopped by to check on Granger again. This was a hospital after all. She grinned cheekily when she said: "I was going to check on you earlier in the afternoon but you seemed wide awake and thoroughly engaged." She looked briefly to me and sent Granger a piercing glance. Granger blushed. "So I figured your health was improving and that I could come back later."

Granger mumbled something unintelligible about hospitals and privacy and the healer snickered.

"Well, your tests all look good. We'll keep you one more night, just to make sure, and tomorrow if all is well, you can go home. Good?"

Granger looked a little uncertain, weighing in her head if she shouldn't insist that she'd be discharged right away. The healer seemed to be able to read her thoughts and said with a grin: "Mr Malfoy here, of course, is welcome to stay another night as well."

Granger looked at me and I shrugged. It was fine with me. One more night in the hospital made certain that I definitely had that time with her. Who knew what tomorrow would bring? Perhaps Nott would change his mind and re-consider pursuing Granger after all and I would have to fight him for her. And I was effectively not dis-engaged. We had to find a way to resolve our betrothal bond and we would need Granger's help one way or another and it was better if she got well before.

After the healer left and dinner was done, Granger looked ready to pass out. "I think, I'm turning in, Malfoy. This day has worn me out." I nodded. I had hoped that we could do some more snogging and in the process breach the topic of how much more snogging I could expect in the future but I could see that she was done for. With her eyelids drooping she still managed to ask: "Where are you going to sleep?"

"Maybe I should go home, have a good night's sleep in my own bed and come back tomorrow morning," I grumbled.

"Or you could enlarge my bed here and cuddle up to me. It'll help me recover faster, if I don't have to miss the compow," she mumbled sleepily. My jaw fell (Well, in my mouth. You will never see a Malfoy staring with an open mouth). Did she just invite me to sleep in her bed? "But no monkey business. I won't be present and that would be considered an offense," she added. I nodded again. With a swish of my wand, her bed was twice as wide and I sat down on the ledge. I pulled my shoes and socks, jumper and trousers off and transformed my pants into a pyjama bottom. I usually slept in the nude but in a hospital where everybody could come in, I was making an exception. They would be able to deal with a nude male torso, though, I figured. By the time I slipped under the cover, Granger had already succumbed to sleep, breathing softly. I scooted over to her back, spooning her and let my head sink on the pillow. Inhaling her rose scent from her bushy hair and the pillow where her head had rested, I embraced her and pulled her flush to my body front and before I could even consider how comfortable this was, the sleep deprivation of the last three days took its toll and I was out like a light.

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_A/N: Awwww. Ain't they cute?_

_Just as an aside: Hermione's remark to an "offense" refers to the fact, sexual intercourse or any types of sexual activity with an unconscious person (that includes sleep, drugged or not) is considered rape, a criminal offense. That has to do with the fact that said person is not able to give consent. Same goes for mentally challenged people if they are incapable of making decisions. (You'd think that a sleeping person wakes up from the movements and the intrusion but apparently there must have been cases where a person woke up and found typical signs of intercourse without his or her knowledge.) When consent has been given and executed, it's another story._

_Alright, I'm giving you this today as an early Xmas present. The last chapter, this one and then the next three hang very closely together, so I'll likely give them to you one by one, a few days apart. I'm struggling with the end, I still need to write that and I have to find the time. But I'll give you enough to tie you over the long Xmas hours._

_Merry Xmas everyone_

_M_


	23. Bliss

_Yeah, Auelle, first review, thank you. __Articcat621, Lex Lina, Niafadra, scv914, nikki98, and Beccax95 for the whole gamut EXCEPT a review (grin)._

_A/N: This is another M chapter, most definitely only for mature readers. EXPLICIT, EXPLICIT. Do not read if you are not over 18. Or if you do, don't come complaining to me._

_For all the others: SHAGFEST, yeah_

_For the entire next three instalments I can't get the song "She doesn't mind" from Sean Paul out of my head. I'm not sure if the lyrics are appropriate but the music goes well. "Set fire to the rain" by Adele works well, too. _

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**Chapter 18 part 3: Bliss**

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**Still Draco's POV:**

_(A/N: my, he has a lot to say this time)_

Another healer woke me up the next morning and she wasn't half as friendly as the previous one.

"We normally do not allow visitors to sleep in the patient's bed, Mr Malfoy. Get up and make yourself decent." Since the hag didn't budge or turn around after she said that, I snarled: "I usually do not get out of bed with a voyeur right next to it. And I wouldn't know why I should provide you a view of my most favourable body other women would give a lot to see. So, you'll either turn around or you will have to put up with me in this bed until after you left again."

The healer blushed and blustered: "Mr Malfoy, I'll have you know that I am Ms Granger's healer this morning and my only concern is her well-being. I have no desire whatsoever to see any part of your person. So, if you would bring yourself to arise, I would be ever so obliged."

I could feel Granger next to me shake with suppressed laughter. I shot of my last repartee. "Well, if you are so concerned about Ms Granger's well-being why don't we ask her? Granger, am I endangering your health?"

Granger couldn't suppress a grin but declined to answer my question. Instead she said: "Malfoy, why don't we let Healer Flick do her work and we can be out of here quicker?"

I frowned at Granger: "You want me to show off my astral body to this hag?" I smoothed my hands once over my chest and contracted my pecs for better effect.

Granger blushed and cleared her throat. "Well, Malfoy, how about Healer Flick and I both turn around and you can sneak off to the bathroom without us watching you?"

"Like you're not going to sneak a peek," I scoffed.

"Malfoy, trust me, we won't," she said.

I stared at her. Trust me. That was the crux, wasn't it? Trust.

I didn't wait for them to turn around. I got up with the hag watching. Who knew how long she had already been standing there anyway, watching me embrace Granger and what she had fantasised in her smutty brain. I let her see my favourable back and arse in the pyjama pants but before I let her see my privates, I went into the bathroom to change. I scourgified and dressed and when I came out, the healer was running her tests over Granger, scowling like a rainy day. Granger looked sheepishly at her, guilty that she had let me bend the hospital rules that we hadn't known existed the previous night. When she finished her tests, she said:

"Well, Ms Granger, your tests look good but our Chief Healer would like to see you before you go. A case like yours doesn't come in very often and he is very keen to make your acquaintance. He is a busy man, though, and cannot set specific times when he comes. If you would be so kind to wait for him?" It sounded like a snarl when she said that. Granger groaned but after her faux-pas with me staying in her bed, she was inclined to indulge the hag of a healer. She nodded. I hrmpf'd.

And so we waited. Granger used the time to get into the bathroom and dressed and ready to leave, then went back to the bed to recline over the sheets, leaning against the pillows.

If we could have used the time to talk about where we stood, it would have been a productive morning. But whenever the dull in the conversation was long enough to broach the subject, the door opened again and another representative of the hospital personnel barged in. I never knew how many people work in a hospital: healers, cleaners, plant care-takers, meal deliverers, pulse takers, trash collectors, you name it.

I managed to tell her in one quiet moment, that Astoria and I had gone to inform her parents of the cancelation of the engagement and how they had taken it. I didn't know what I had expected how Granger would take it. Did I want her to jump up and down in joy over the fact that I had done my part to dissolve the engagement and have her declare her undying love for me? Yeah, right. As it was, Granger bit her lips guiltily that she had considered me a man free to pursue and to kiss and to let me sleep in her bed, and I could tell that she was glad that we had been interrupted the previous day. And although I could understand that she didn't want to be involved with an otherwise engaged man, it gave me a little sting that she so obviously regretted kissing me.

Fortunately, we were distracted by Potter and his Weaselette stopping by one more time, happy to see that Granger was to be discharged. While Potter eyed me curiously and I frowned back at him, the Weaselette stepped over to converse quietly with Granger. I couldn't understand what they said exactly, but it ended with the Weaselette grinning smuglyand hugging her friend.

Potter considered briefly to wait with Granger to see her home but after his girlfriend had elbowed him several times and made a fuss of wanting to go to a new coffee place in Diagon Alley and after Granger reassured them that she was quite able to make it back home on her own, they left. They promised to check on her later.

After they had left, there was a slight dull in the conversation. And again we were saved from saying something meaningfully because the Chief Healer came in, shook Granger's hand and told her, if she would be so kind to make an appointment with the ward scribe to dictate a report about what she knew about the spell that had hit her, he would be very much obliged. Granger mumbled "Certainly" and as soon as he had shaken her hand again and thanked her profoundly, he turned around and stalked out of the room with sweeping robes, not unlike Snape had always done. Only that this healer had an entourage follow him that would have made Voldemort green with envy.

Our unfriendly healer from the morning stayed behind and said: "Thank you, Ms Granger, for waiting. You are good to go now. Please make an appointment on your way out and report back next week to run some check-up tests." She didn't make it a secret that she wanted us and our scandalous behaviour gone as quickly as possible from her ward.

I couldn't let it slide. With the best imitation of my father's iciest tone and looking at my (impeccable) fingernails, I addressed her: "Healer Flick, how are the funds running that ensure your salary every months? If I remember correctly from my books, Malfoy Enterprises is a major benefactor of your particular ward, isn't it? So, how about you show a little indulgence and look the other way when the man who could possibly influence the cash flow in the future decided to sleep in a hospital bed, which, I can assure you, is quite a step down from my usual resting place?"

The healer paled and when I raised an eyebrow at her, she huffed and with a "Good day to you, Sir" she turned and flounced out of the room.

Granger looked at me wide-eyed. "Some healers are being paid of the donations that your companies make to St. Mungo's?"

I shrugged. "And people at the Ministry and the Library and many other institutions in the wizarding world."

It seemed to sink into her brain for the first time that I came with quite a money bag and what that would mean for 'us'. I hoped it was not going to be an issue. We could discuss that later. I tried to distract her.

"Do you want to wait for the pitiable lunch here or are you ready to go?"

Granger sat up in bed and swung her legs over the side. "I think I want to take some lunch home with me and just get out of here."

I snipped my fingers. "I know just the place. Get dressed and I'll be right back."

I went quickly to my favourite restaurant and bought (with my good name) enough of my favourite dishes to feed an army and then some (remembering that Granger was a healthy eater), shrank them to fit in my pocket and was back in Granger's room when she just finished putting on her shoes.

She was still a bit wobbly on her legs at first but after making it to the door, she had enough strength again to walk on her own.

In the main lobby, I followed her into the fireplace and to her apartment. When I stepped out, I heard her calling to Crookshanks who came slinking around the corner from her bedroom.

She picked him up in the middle of her living room and turned to me. "Ginny must have feed him."

Ah, protection. She needed something between herself and me, so she pulled her cat before her, I thought a little disappointed. It wasn't unexpected, though. I'd just told her that the betrothal issue wasn't as easily fixed as we had thought with Astoria's agreement. And so I was basically unavailable. But I was absolutely confident that there was a way and that we would find it. And quick. I had camped out in her hospital room while she was unconscious and that was the reason I was even allowed to bring her home but we still hadn't talked about what we actually had. Just because I knew that I needed her in my life and couldn't get our kisses and our one-time-shag out of my head and thought about repeats whenever I looked at her, didn't mean she had arrived at that point yet. She still needed time, to think it over, to figure it out. I could do that. I had two healthy hands, I didn't need to jump the sack with her right away. Want, very much; need, no. Not if she didn't.

"Draco, I …"

I stepped back and raised my hands defensively: "I get it, you need to think, to recuperate. It's alright. I'll go."

She was alarmed: "What? No! You can't go."

I was confused: "You want me to stay with you?" I thought she needed time to think things over. Wasn't that what Hermione Granger did?

She gripped Crookshanks tightly as if she could hold me tight with it. "Yes, of course. Why would you go now?" Crooks meowed. "Oh, sorry, Crooks."

I stepped forward to stroke her cat over the head. Crookshanks liked that and rubbed his head up into my hand. "Why would you want me to stay?" I asked with a frown.

Her eyes blazed. "Well, excuse me, for wanting to find out why the guy I thought was engaged to another woman, sat for three days next to my unconscious body in the hospital for all the world to see and gab about. And when I wake up, he tells me he is not engaged anymore. And now it's not certain. Not to mention how I woke up. You moved the compow, didn't you?"

I nodded. "At first, I couldn't get it anywhere close to the spell on you. I didn't know what to look for, where to look, how to get to you. I went to the border of your magic but didn't know if and how I could go further. Until Goyle came to visit. He tipped me off on what the spell could be. He told me that he had possibly been trained by Carrow in doing the exact spell that hit you. And he told me what he knew about it: incantation is 'Katatonici' and that the person under was actually wide awake in there, caged in her brain. I confirmed that you were in there, awake, with the signals on your magical border, you remember, and then, with your help, with your magic tickling, I pushed the compow into you. You know that you pulled. Didn't you have access to the compow under the spell?" I finished with a frown.

"I don't know. I don't think so." She mumbled soberly. She went over to her couch and sank on it, Crookshanks still in her arms. She gazed in the distance, reminiscing. "I was entirely paralysed. This spell, it does incarcerate you inside your head and makes you feel like you are totally alone and abandoned. I heard you talking to me and that connection to life kept me sane, I believe. I didn't hear every word you said and I didn't understand that you sat there without interruption for all the time. I just felt that I wasn't alone and that felt good. But until you 'knocked' on my magic, I wasn't aware that I could actually move it. And when you told me to pull, I just did. I didn't know before that I could."

"Glad to be of service," I mumbled. A minute or two, nobody said anything.

"Draco?" she said, still far away.

"Yeah?"

She turned her head, her warm brown eyes were on me and I felt my throat constrict. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for sitting with me, for saving me."

I walked over to her on the couch and sat next to her. Her eyes followed me. "You're welcome," I said. She looked down to my moving lips and stayed there. "Aw, come on, Granger, I couldn't have let you rot in your body. What about the compow? We still have to figure out what it does."

Her eyes snapped up again and a glare sneaked in. "You didn't seem too worried about it when you went to propose to Astoria, effectively ending our cooperation."

"Yes, well," I snarled back, "you didn't think about it either, when you told me in no uncertain terms that you couldn't see us together; and that it likely wouldn't be conducive for our work together when you offended my pride."

"Oh, your pride? I offended your pride? How was I to take from your babbling about a myth that you seriously considered us being together?" A little heat rose in her cheeks. It looked positively cute.

"Oh, and you couldn't have possibly concluded from my star performance in your bedroom that I would have liked a repeat?" I growled. I felt a little twitch in my pants, being reminded of what we had done in her bedroom.

"Your star performance?" she exclaimed, throwing her arms up, giving Crookshanks the opportunity to scud, which he didn't take, head between his shoulders. "What is it with men and sex? Either women have to please them or they are delivering star performances. Did you ever consider how I liked it, whether you were good enough for me, if I wanted a repeat?" she hissed.

"No," I honestly answered, folding my arms. "I didn't. I took your screaming my name when you came as a quality sign. Sure, there are women who sob after their climaxes, but that's usually after the fourth or fifth, so I figured there is room for improvement. But then, I didn't think it was a one-time thing either. I thought I had more time." To imagine her sobbing after climatic fulfilment, hmmm.

"Well, so did I. Wait, fourth or fifth what? Fourth or fifth climax?" She blanched. "One can have that many?"

I smirked and shifted a little in my seat. "As far as I know, women can have as many as they want, there is no limit. I got a woman to eight in one night, not counting the plateaus. Men tend to fall asleep after the fourth at the latest and that's only if they have the stamina to get to four. If the first one is as hard as the one I had with you, even I wouldn't get to four and I have pretty good stamina." Let me show you, let me show you, I sang in my head.

She blushed because of my allusion to our fantastic shag but rolled her eyes none the less and then sneered. "Oh, yes, I can't wait to find out."

I narrowed my eyes. "Truly?" I knew she wasn't there yet. One could hope, though.

She scoffed. "Honestly, Malfoy. I'm no slut, I told you that."

I contemplated her. "A woman who sleeps with many men indiscriminately is a slut. But not a woman who enjoys pleasure per se, not in my book. Do you want to find out if you can have more than three in one go?"

She glowered at me. "Who says I want to find out anything with you?"

I sneered. So typical Granger to play the prude when we both knew that we made an explosive mix. She had already taken me home like a stray dog and now she wondered why I panted. I hadn't been thinking of our evening together while sitting over her unconscious body, but at least since our almost-shag yesterday it didn't really leave my mind. I was haunted by memories of her writhing in pleasure, moaning, arching and screaming my name climaxing. My body was on constant alert to wait for her signals to tell me she was ready. There was something pulling me in her direction, like she had an arrow over her head, pointing me to her. My brain understood that she didn't want to do that while the issue with my betrothal wasn't solved, but my body didn't listen, as my tight pants indicated.

My brain also understood that it was nowhere in the clear as far as the emotional state with her was concerned. And "love" and "relationship" were big words. But my brain knew for sure that it wanted a repeat of the shag to help with the decision making. Oh, come on, I am a virile young man. Why ever would I NOT think of shagging her again? If the next shag with her was equally explosive as the last, I (my brain) would think more about how to make that a permanent arrangement.

Hm, maybe she needed some motivation before she got too deep into thinking things over. "Ah, Granger chickens out. I should have known. There's something wrong with the Gryffindors. They pride themselves on their bravery and adventurousness but I have yet to see prove of…," was as far as I got. Crookshanks set aside, she jumped up on the couch and shoved a knee in my groin and pointed her wand at my throat in a blink. Her face right in mine, she hissed: "Do you really want to finish that sentence?"

I grinned. I had her exactly where I wanted her. Oh, predictable Gryffindors. Her knee rubbing over my privates had an instant effect. "..that," I said. She growled in fury, her cheeks flushed, her hair wild, almost like the last time, only this time she was truly furious. How delicious. She poked her wand deeper into my throat and of course, I had to fend her off. I couldn't let her pierce my neck, could I? There is only so much abuse a Malfoy can take. I grabbed her by the waist and arms and flipped her away from Crookshanks over my lap to my side of the couch and was over her in a second. She had pulled her knees defensively up and between us and I leaned on them. Holding and pressing her wrists to her chest, I breathed in her face: "Are you sure you don't want to find out?" Her eyes glared at me and her cheeks flushed deeper in anger or something else. My body started humming in delight. I nipped her upper lip. She growled. Granger looked delicious when angered. I was hoping we would have lots of make-up sex in the future. I nipped her lower lip. She shook her head, ruffling her hair up even more, and snarled "Malfoy…" threateningly.

"Yes?" I asked teasingly and smoothed my tongue over the underside of her upper lip. If I could drink from these luscious lips I would die a happy man, they were that delicious, I swear.

"Malfoy," she panted.

"Hmhm," I teased again, laying my lips over hers very lightly and pushing my tongue gently in between. My cock hard and engorged, I let go of her arms, leaned further in and took possession of her mouth. I nipped and nibbled and pulled and licked and held and bit and sucked and tongued her lips that my world stopped existing except for the feeling of her lips moving with mine. When she moaned, I felt the resistance recede from her arms and her hands stretch out to lie gently on my throat. That was more like it. I took her lower lip between mine and pulled it gently and let go again.

"In case you wonder, Granger," I whispered against her lips, "I'm dying to find out."

With a groan she gave up her resistance entirely and gripped my lips with hers. And she took me by surprise. I had expected her to give up and let me kiss her. I hadn't expected her to ferociously devour my lips right away. I had been the one teasing her and wanting her and enticing her to her provocative position on my lap but I was unprepared for the onslaught of fire shooting in my groin from her kisses. It didn't help of course, that she separated her knees to take my weight of them and that in that movement her feet grazed over a particular hardened but sensitive body part of mine. I whimpered. And when my body, held up by her shins and knees, sank down on her pubic area and she gasped and closed her legs over my back, I couldn't control myself anymore.

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**Hermione's POV:**

I couldn't resist. Even though he masked it as verbal foreplay, as something on a purely sexual level, the longing in him, the need to unite with me was palpable. If it had been purely sexual for him I would have held back, at least until the matter with the betrothal was sorted out. I wouldn't be another notch on his bed post (as a conquest, I mean, yes, I know I'd already slept with him once, I remember. I could excuse that as an accident.); and I wasn't going to take another woman's man, however right it felt to be with him.

And that was the thing: I was cautious because I felt him to be still connected to Astoria. The day before in my room at St. Mungo's, I wanted to kiss him because I thought he was a free man but I couldn't have gone further (even with privacy wards). I felt the magical connection, the bond going outward from him, connecting him to another person, even before he told me. I just hadn't been sure of what exactly it had been. Luckily the door interrupted us because I was pretty certain that he wasn't aware of my reservations. Not that I made them perfectly clear. I didn't. But it irritated the compow, I felt, and my magic as well, like a fly around the head, and I couldn't ignore that. My magical connection with him was mine and another woman's magic in him felt wrong. That was the first time I felt it so profoundly. And on the other hand, to be with him, to be so close to him was right, he was mine, he wanted me and when I was truly honest with myself, I wanted him too.

But with Astoria's magic still in him, it didn't make sense to want him so much. To hear from my friends what he'd done, how he had reacted to me being hit, how I had reacted to him being threatened, how he had stayed with me until he could be sure I would recover, it drove the point home that he wanted me and that I returned that particular feeling. It was a need, pure and raw, now, that pulled us together. But it wasn't supposed to be that way with the compow. The carriers were supposed to be able to separate. And even though I didn't think that Ariadne Lovegood was wrong really, it was possible that the compow had nothing to do with it. Yes, it felt better when whole, I had felt it after Malfoy came back for the last mission. I had felt what he had felt all these months ago at the Manor. Yet there had to be other forces at work that drove us together. It simply wasn't plausible and I tried to withstand the draw to him as much as possible because I didn't want to become a pawn for any magical forces.

So, when I gave in on that day, it was against better judgement but I felt that I didn't really have a choice. When he had just nipped seductively on my lips, I was still able to resist. It wasn't that I was totally opposed to sleeping with him again. The last time had been phenomenal and I wouldn't have minded a repeat at all. But I felt that something was pushing me to do it. And that made me automatically wary.

Ginny had talked me into letting him accompany me home before I was discharged that morning. I had whined: "But he is still engaged."

And Ginny had given back: "Hermione, he wants you. He's clearly at your side, not his fiancée's. Everything else will fall into place." While I let that sink in, another thought occurred to me. "Why didn't you sit with me, waiting until I wake up, Ginny?"

She smiled a thin smile in response: "Because he was here. We would have come back after the healer sent us out, we did come back but whenever we did, his pain, his despair over your state was palpable. We would have all three sat with you but he and Ron in one room for more than five minutes was unfathomable. And it was painful and indecent to watch him so vulnerable. It felt right to leave you alone with him." She ended with a shrug.

"Hm," I mused.

Ginny whispered the next: "By the way, did you know that his full name is Draco Ladon Arion Malfoy? I checked it after you told me about your dream. There is a register where all pureblooded magical folks are listed by full name."

If she had smacked me right in the face, I couldn't have looked more shocked.

Ginny smirked: "We'll let him get you home, alright?" She patted my shoulder and then hugged me.

At my home, I was still cautious because my brain said 'he is engaged'. His tempting closeness and his clear need for me, though, jumbled things up big time.

And when he took my mouth and focused on its pleasure, I got lost. I forgot all of my concerns quickly when he pulled my lips with his softly and admitted that he wanted nothing more than to try out how much pleasure he was able to give me. 'Oh, what the heck' something said in my ear. 'Give yourself the pleasure, you've been denying yourself long enough. He wants you, he's skilled, and he'll make it good for you.' The voice saying 'but he's still engaged, he belongs to another woman,' was quickly overruled. I took his lips on mine and immediately realised that I needed him closer. I pulled my protective knees out from under him, felt the hardened length and remembered how it had felt in me the last time. I shuddered in memory. I heard him whimper when my feet brushed by his groin. With the support of my legs gone he fell onto my sensitive parts and I gasped when heat shot right into my pelvic area. I folded my legs over his back, like I'd done last time. And then he lost control.

I didn't know what happened but I saw him unravel. His eyes became a swirly grey and glazed over, his breathing turned into pants, his kisses became frantic but still skilled and delicious and his hands ripped at his and my clothes like they were burning into his skin and he needed to remove them as quickly as possible. I didn't mind, I quite enjoyed his urgency, even though I still wasn't sure what was driving him. Something was, I was certain; forces that were larger than the two of us. There was still the raw need in the air, pushing him to get me ready to receive him. And I know how hilarious it sounds. But I didn't want to think more about it when he, stripped entirely of all cloth covering, made his way from my already swollen lips, over my throat, down my chest, stopping at my breasts to make the nipples stand to attention (with a force that made my toenails curl), down my stomach with both hands at my sides (I shivered) between my legs where he put his nose right on my clit and his tongue right at my entrance. I 'haaa'd and lying with my shoulders on the sofa rest where he had deposited me, I let my head sink back. With just a few tongue licks he had me shaking. He switched his tongue to my nob and gently inserted his fingers between my silky walls. He moved them in the same rhythm as his tongue and after a few moves I already couldn't take it anymore.

"Oh, Gawd, oh, Gawd, oh, Merlin, oh, holy mother of Merlin, don't stop, Draco, don't stop, don't' stop, don't stop, please, please, please, please, please," I moaned.

He stopped for a second to answer: "Never, Granger." And then continued. That one tiny break was all my over-sensitized body had needed. With the force of a cosmic explosion, I fell apart. My body shook like I was in a serious fit and I huffed and panted and screamed and squeaked to ride it out and when I came back down to earth, I noticed him over me and felt him in me. He had pushed in while I was still climaxing, being milked by my clenching walls. His eyes were charcoal grey and still glazed over and his lower lip quivered but he looked at me intently, if that makes any sense. When I was master over my limps again, I wrapped them around him, caressing his body into mine. I dug my hands into his hair in the back of his head and moved my fingernails over his scalp like tiny little spider legs. He closed his eyes and pushed his head back into my hands; he pushed himself deeper in me and then started to thrust, slowly at first but then faster and faster. I pulled his head forward again to claim his lips and kissed him as if I wanted to suck his soul out. I tasted myself on them and together with his own smell and taste it made an exquisite mix. I licked and sucked his lips entirely clean with the tip of my tongue while he panted into my mouth and moved with his thrusts, panting loudly with every shove: "Yes, yes, yes, Draco, Malfoy, yes".

"Shut up, Granger," he hissed after a while and then kissed me hard. "You'll make me come just by your moaning," he mumbled through his lips on mine. He shoved harder. "And I want you to come first." I squeezed my legs together as much as I could with him in between and his eyes bulged.

"Merlin, Granger, don't do that, or do that, or don't," he babbled and shuddered. I had my hands on his back and I felt his muscles contracting with every shove. His back was slick with sweat and when I stroked my hands up to his shoulder I felt them trembling. I moved my hands down to his lower back again and took a hold of his lower cheeks. With a move of my head, my face touched his cheek and I noticed that it was drenched in sweat as well. I licked it off while I felt him panting on my neck. The saltiness of his skin bit into my tongue. And then I was distracted by the sensation of something coiling in me. Not like a regular orgasm coils in the lower belly. More like a predator cat cowering in preparation for the jump, the muscles tensing, the body balancing, the eyes focusing, one sinuous animal lined up for a deadly strike. It spread warm throughout my chest and stomach, over my neck and throat and head and down into my legs. I moaned long and deep at the feeling and stretched my back in reaction to the rolling in me and Draco's trembling increased. I could feel him tensing just like the predator cat in me for the jump.

I upped my efforts. I kneaded his buttocks, and licked over his cheek again, then bit his chin, then his cheekbone, then his upper lip. I replaced my teeth with my lips and pulled his like he had done with mine, smoothing my tongue over the underside. He growled and increased his speed. The rolling in me intensified.

I looked at his face. His eyes were still glazed, his forehead sweaty and furrowed, his mouth half open and panting, hair hanging in his face, his entire body trembling. He was beautiful in his dishevelled state. For a second, anger surged through me when I thought about how many women might have seen him in this state, sweaty, panting in arousal, trembling in pre-orgasmic bliss, having his handsome body with pleasure. But when I looked into his eyes over me, I saw something curling deep inside and it made me wonder if any of the other women had looked behind his obvious physical arousal and seen the emotional hunger in his eyes; the hunger for connection; the need for a bliss that went way past the physical release and relaxation; the want to stay, to rest his soul, to belong. It made my heart clench to see behind the glaze of his eyes, where the grey swirled, this deep seated desire in him to find the place where he felt safe, where he never had to watch his back. I thought back to the one day when he had come to my apartment to find comfort. He had looked so peaceful, resting on my shoulder. Was I to be the woman he could satiate this hunger, he would find emotional shelter with? If he had been still the cowardly, bullying git he used to be in school, I wouldn't have wasted another thought on it. But he wasn't. He had grown. He had taken my pain when I was tortured in his parent's house. He had supported me in his way. And to think, that I could be the safe haven for a powerful man like Draco Malfoy, elated me. It surged like fire through me, and wrapped itself around the tensely coiled cat in my rump, like a notion of power building in me, to wonder if I was able to give this man what he had been seeking in vain. I wanted to. By Gryffindor, I wanted that.

I moved my hands up to his head and held it and I made him look at me. I put all the welcoming feeling that I could gather up into my eyes, all the acceptance, all the receiving. He saw it and stopped his movement entirely, except for the trembling, captured by my eyes. After all our moaning and panting before it was all of a sudden eerily still.

"Draco Arion Malfoy," I whispered. "I'll have you. I take you. Belong to me."

His eyes still clung to mine, not knowing where else to go. I gave him one soft kiss full on his mouth and continued: "Make me yours." There was a ping in the air, like a tightened string snapping.

His eyes shuttered close and it was a wonder that he could hold himself up because he trembled like he was in the throes of a tropical fever. He gasped like a fish on dry land, did one or two more strokes and then I felt his warm come filling me. His shuddering shook me and his tremors stimulated me and when he filled me up, it pushed me over the edge.

My own cry of rapture was drowned out by a sound of steel ropes snapping that were supposed to hold an ocean liner against a stormy sea and while I was arching into the throes of my climax, the compow imploded on us with a feeling of the air being sucked out of the room and a colour inferno of magic waving that included even more than our two or three colours. I couldn't breathe but since the implosion pulled us together like oxygen sucked from the air I could at least see Draco's face. He held me as if his arms were welded around my body and watched me come undone through his glazed eyes. When my arch reached its zenith, the eye contact broke and he couldn't hold himself up anymore. He sagged down on my chest. While arching my entire body tingled, which reminded me of the gambolling in our magic. The tiny electrical currents running up and down were just like the feeling now.

This was no normal climactic arch. Not only did it last forever, but I couldn't even remember why I came exactly. The same went for Draco. The last time we had been together, he had babbled incessantly, he had cursed in the throes of ecstasy, he had cried out and then climaxed. This day, he had chugged along, only halfway there, and all of a sudden he had burst when I told him he to be mine. This didn't have the same flavour as the last time.

But eventually I did come down from my high. I sagged down properly, watching our magical colours billow around us, and snuggled under his larger warm body, his face right between my breasts. I was surprised to find that he was still shaking. Was he ill? Had he overexerted himself with his day long watch on my bed side?

I put my arms over his shoulders and scooted down a little lower, so his face moved up to my neck and I could embrace him better. His arms were still slung around me, like he meant to stay in this exact position forever. I just held him in his shaking and stroked his hair, waiting for him to calm down. Waiting and doing nothing is not acceptable for Hermione Granger. Since our compow had done something unexpected again and I saw our magic wafting around us, I figured I'd go take a look. I dove down to the level of our magical fields and was shocked to see Draco's magic vibrating like his body did. The compow set right next to it, and although it's hard to tell because we don't really have the right words for the description of energy movements, but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say it looked a little smug. I definitely felt a certain air of smugness coming from it. I pushed my magic over to Draco's and glided over it. The last time we'd done that had been instantly phenomenal, exciting, breath taking. The least it could do now was to knock him out of his shaking, except if he was really unwell. But his magic reacted. It calmed under the ministrations of my gliding and up on the physical level, I could feel his body relaxing. I glided over a few more times for the effect and because it felt so good. I know, I just had had climatic bliss but it had been a strange one and this magical gliding felt comfortably exciting and familiar. Familiar, his magic felt familiar. By now, I would have recognised it everywhere, it belonged to me, and it felt right.

I gave the smug compow a finger and came back up to pay more attention to soothe his physical body. The shaking had stopped but he felt somehow weak in my arms.

"Draco?" No reply.

"Draco, are you alright?" I went again. I stroked his face.

He turned his head a little, so that his face came in direct contact with my neck and exhaled, blowing air over the area. It felt cold; like wet skin that's being blown over. What the…?

"Draco, what's wrong?" I scooted a little lower still to be able to look in his face and was startled to see that it was wet. His eyes closed, his lashes wet, big fat teardrops were running over his nose and cheeks. I stroked the one cheek I could reach with my hand and kissed his face all over.

When he finally opened his eyes, I held them with mine, the swirling grey clear again but he looked as forlorn as I must have appeared when I went to his engagement reception.

"What's the matter?" I whispered. He closed his eyes again and burrowed his face back in my neck. It tickled but in a very good way. I could get used to the feeling.

"That was wicked," he spoke with an emotionally heavy voice into my neck. He slowly stirred, moving a little to the side to take some weight of me. I held him tight.

"Don't move too far over, you are warm like a blanket." I sighed into his side of his head. "And I've got you good like this." His shoulders shook again and I heard him chuckle.

He shook his head in the crook of my neck, his soft hair tickling my chin. "Granger, you are one of a kind."

I smiled. "Thank you, I work hard on that."

He chuckled again. "I bet you do," he murmured. "You work hard on everything, even me."

I snickered. I felt exhilarated. This last bout of sex, even though unusual, had energized me. I felt like the birds in the morning when the sun comes up and they are compelled to sing. My chest swelled, pushing me effectively against him. "Yes, well, I give that compliment back," I replied. He inhaled deeply and then it felt wet again against my skin. I was a little alarmed. Was Draco Malfoy crying into my neck?

"Draco, what is the matter?" I put my face right in front of his and forced him to look at me. I was concerned.

He shook his head. "I don't know. It was simply wicked. It wasn't really a climax, I moved like on autopilot and then it was ripped out of me. It wasn't painful but exactly opposite to when the Dark Mark is octroyed on you this was ripped out of me. It just shook me to the core. And now it's flowing out of my eyes and I can't stop it. And if you ever tell anybody that you saw Draco Malfoy crying, you'll be very sorry indeed."

I stroked his face with my thumb and ignored his last childish comment. There were more important things to deal with. "Well, it jolted your magic as well. Maybe that's why it shattered you so much."

He looked puzzled. "My magic? Why would it shake my magic?"

I tilted my head a bit. "Didn't you feel the implosion?"

He frowned. "Of course I did. What did it do this time, the compow?"

I contemplated. "I don't know exactly. Want to take a look?"

He nodded and I dove down again, this time with him. The compow looked as smug as it did before. I would even say it waved at us or jiggled a bit in excitement. Both our magical fields laid serenely next to each other, perfectly aligned, like a smooth ocean surface with absolutely no ripples, the compow uniting them on one end, so to say.

"They moved together. Our magical fields moved together. There is nothing separating them anymore," he whispered breathlessly.

'Nothing separating them?' I thought. There was supposed to be something. I aligned my magical field over his like we had done before when we found the Dark Mark as a hole in his field and my consolidation. There was nothing. Smooth surface to smooth surface, no holes, no dents, no densities, no foreign magic, nothing. Just us. Pure and simple.

"Draco, the bond is gone." I gasped.

"Pardon?"

"The binding magic is gone. And so is the hole of the Mark."

He was alarmed. "What? How can it be gone? I thought we needed Astoria because she is attached to it as well."

"Apparently not," I snapped. I wouldn't have any other woman next to my Malfoy, ever again. Because that's what he was. He was mine. Period.

He gave me a somewhat condescending but slightly amused look and drew up one eyebrow very deliberately. "What's with the attitude, Granger?"

I growled. "You won't need Astoria ever again." I tightened my grip around him.

He smirked. "Is that so?"

"Yes" I barked.

He loosened his arms that still clung around me and moved a little back, smirk still firmly on his face. "But perhaps I want to go see Astoria, see if she felt the effect of the separation. She might need some comfort and I'd be happy to oblige."

I tightened my hold on him and wrapped my legs around, moving him right to my from our mutual fluids very wet centre. "You won't be going anywhere," I snarled.

His eyes glinted. "Ah, but it is my duty as a fellow pureblood to see to the welfare of my peers. You just wouldn't understand, Granger." He sat up against my restraints. He was too strong for me to hold down.

"No" I barked, sitting up myself.

He paused for a moment on his ascent from the sofa, his feet already on the floor. His eyes narrowed to slits, he hissed: "And what incentive would you give me to stay?"

I moved in on him on all fours. I pushed my face against his throat and bared my teeth against his sensitive skin.

"I will bite you very painfully if you move further up off the couch." He chuckled.

"Are you seducing me?"

"No. I'm a lioness, I just take what is mine." I pushed further into him, so that he, moving back from my snarling self, came to rest on his back on the other side of the sofa (Crookshanks had long fled out of the room. I figured he was hiding under my bed, his favourite place.) and bent over him. I bit his throat gently and heard him inhale. I bit his neck and then went in on a long row of tiny bites combined with lip pulls or tongue soothes all over his throat and the side of his neck, then down his chest, over his nipples, down his stomach and into the line of hair. He was truly blond. The curly hair in his pelvic area was a little darker than the platinum of his head but still light. I dug my nose in, smelt our mixed scents and my chin nudged a certain appendix standing to attention again. I looked up at him and saw him watching me surreptitiously, his eyes wide. I narrowed my eyes and a small smile played around my mouth.

"Granger, no, don't do that, you'll just bite it and… bloody hell," he cried out when I put my mouth over the head of his gorgeous pale cock. Its skin was soft on my lips, if a little sticky from our previous union. It smelled tangy but clean. It was wide. Its head almost filled my mouth. I adjusted my tongue to the room available and heard him whimper at the contact.

Some tongue licks, some sucks, some moves later he hid his face in his palms, whimpered, and clenched his stomach muscles. I felt the blood surge into his phallus and the heat intensify. I was having a good time. It felt like really indulging in a good lollipop. I mean, a blood-flavoured lollipop and other wizarding candy doesn't taste sweet either and I was having fun. Until he cupped his hand behind my head and pulled me up. His cock fell out of my mouth with a plop and he pulled me all of the way to his mouth to give me a scorching kiss. Like I had licked my taste of his lips, he did the same with mine. I felt his head nudge at my entrance and with a hip move he was halfway in. He cried out into my mouth, then ripped his face away to pant heavily. "Bloody fucking hell, Granger, that's not helping. First you take me into your succulent little mouth and when I can't stand it anymore you suck me in your pussy. I can't…"

I did a hip roll to shut him up. He cried out again. The closer he got, the more monosyllabic he became, I noticed that last time. He reduced himself to a particular syllable. The four letter word. I did a few more of these hip rolls because it had such an effect and his pants became frantic. He wrapped his arms around me and held me really tight, and thrust his cock into me, panting like a short distance runner. I wondered how much more aroused I could get him. I, bookworm Hermione Granger, was driving Draco Malfoy, Slytherin's prince, former Death Eater, and playboy extraordinaire to new extremes. I couldn't believe it myself but I wanted to see how much further I could get him. I clenched my lower muscles, so that he would feel the ripples pushing in and the suction pulling out. It drove him wild. Driving into me, he moaned and panted and cried after a few strokes and to make matters worse, I took his lower lip between mine and licked and sucked and bit like he had told me to do the first time he had been coming in to counter my pain. I clenched my lower muscles deliberately one more time and he fell apart with a cry. "Granger, haa, haa, haaaahaaa."

His back arched so much back over the other couch rest that he lifted me up with his body, pushing all the way in. I felt my knees lose touch with the sofa cushions and I supported myself with my arms on his chest.

I clenched a few more times to prolong his orgasm but I let go of his lip. He already made noises like a heavy weight lifter pushing up 500 kg, and I didn't want him to have a heart attack. It felt good to have his taut stomach and firm chest under my soft body. I burrowed my face in his neck and inhaled his scent until he relaxed enough to lie back on the sofa. Then I looked back up with a kiss to his throat.

He wasn't sated to be blissfully relaxed. Au contraire, his eyes were wide like I had just crucified him and he couldn't believe that the pain was over. I kissed his mouth, satisfied with my little game but he kept his eyes open and looked at me as if I was a new magical species that he had never seen before.

I drew up one eyebrow and asked calmly: "Incentive enough?"

"You want to kill me," he replied hoarsely.

With an amused smile I asked back: "Excuse me?"

He snarled the Draco-Malfoy-voice that I had heard for six years at Hogwarts: "You are going to isolate me from everybody I know, here in your apartment, and then you are going to murder me by fucking me to death. That's been your plan all along, admit it. You want revenge on my family for the way my crazy aunt has tortured you. You captured the Malfoy heir and want to murder him with heart failure due to ecstasy. When I'm dead you are likely going to devour my handsome body like a black widow and dance on the grave of my earthly remains. Admit it. You are a witch." The last sentence he had hissed.

I couldn't resist an eye roll: "Astute observation, Malfoy. I am a witch."

He huffed. I continued: "As for the fucking to death theory, it's not going to happen anytime soon. Fucking, yes, I like it a lot. I remember you bringing up the option of shackling, to the bed or the wall, I'm not too picky, and I want to try that before you exhale your last breath, but I'm reasonable. I'll give you decent breaks in between. Heck, I'll even feed you. I could imagine that the erection is not quite as strong when you constantly force it. I mean, as you've educated me, men need a break after the fourth orgasm at the latest. It's only women who can go nonstop, did I get that right?"

He nodded, totally flabbergasted. "I created a monster."

I laughed. "Well, if you make something so good, you cannot wonder after, that I want it."

He rested his head on the sofa rest behind him, stared at the ceiling and huffed: "And insatiable. I created an insatiable monster."

I snickered. "Talking about feeding and insatiable, didn't you bring some lunch? I'm starving." I looked down between our bodies where we were still connected. Glistening skin wherever you looked, one way or another. "And I could do with a shower." There was a glint in his eyes. Then his face morphed into an evil grin. "Shower sounds good," he said.

Needless to say what happened there.

.

**DMHGDMHGDMHGDMHG**

.

Hermione had no sooner started the water in her shower stall and adjusted the temperature, when two pale male hands grabbed her behind and with tender force pushed her into the shower. She squeaked when she threatened to slip but the male hands held her upright by the hips. She felt a typically male body behind her in her small shower, with all body parts. The water pounding down from above, the hands moved up to her breasts and kneaded the wet skin. She enjoyed the water washing down the recent events. Even though Hermione was certain that she had been cleaned in the hospital, taking your own shower was way more agreeable. And with a personal masseur, no less.

"Hmmmm,"she made, enjoying the water running down her chest that was being so nicely stimulated. She leaned a little back into Draco Malfoy's naked chest behind her and stretched her back, rolled her neck to several cracks and pushed her bottom against the muscled thighs. The hands started to wander from her breasts down her stomach, then around her hips and back up, slowly, several times over her cheeks and up her sway and all the way up the back to her shoulders where they rested for a bit. Having moistened her front, she turned around to wash her hair and looked into the piercing grey eyes of a man with an excellent built. Now, in the shower, she finally had a good opportunity to eye him from head to toe. His shoulders were broad in comparison to his hips and although he was a slim built, a typical seeker, he had an athletic body. Because of the paleness of his skin, six packs and muscle strings were not clearly discernible but he had them, none the less. His pale chest was smooth, with a rosy scar criss-crossing, his stomach flat with no hint of fat, his hips slim and his legs long and muscled. The best part, apart from his handsome face of course, was the male appendix that in his case looked even long when relaxed. It was pale like his skin, with a rose coloured head, and the skin looked soft like a baby's.

Hermione washed her hair with her favourite rose shampoo, making tiny little satisfied moans over the good feeling to be clean again, and under the scrutiny of a male who had placed his hands on her waist when she had turned around and who could clearly not wait until she was finished rinsing.

"So, that's where the rose smell comes from," he said when he stepped up to her after she had washed out all the suds.

"Hmhm," she nodded. "I brought it back from France when I went with my parents, years and years ago. It's my favourite."

"Hmhm," he mumbled nuzzling her neck. "Mine too."

She grinned. "What, you're using rose shampoo?"

He snorted: "No, silly, my favourite on you. You smell like my mother's rose garden in late summer."

"Oh." She was a bit surprised that he had already formed an opinion on her smell. Little did she know that he had smelt her out for weeks.

Done with her rinsing, she was about to turn off the water when he halted her hand. "Wait, I'm not done yet."

"Oh, sorry, M..," she started but wasn't able to finish because he had pushed her with his body out from under the water stream to place himself under it and captured her mouth with his. While the water was pounding on his back and she was sheltered from the falling water drops, he distracted her with long sucking kisses, so luxuriously as if he was enjoying his favourite meal. Her hands wandered over the pale planes that she had admired earlier and got caught on the again protruding organ between their wet bodies. She laid her hands around it and heard him whimper again. He didn't let off on the kissing and she went to enjoy the feel of the soft skin under her fingers; like silk over hard rubber, somewhat pliable still but hard enough to stand on its own. She nimbly explored its form, its veins, the skin receding from the head and rubbed her palm over it. Malfoy huffed at that and continued kissing with even more ardour. Without a glance she continued her exploration to its base and further down to the soft sack below. It was at a good height for her to reach, as she reached about up to Malfoy's chin. Everything in his groin area was in easy approachable height for her hands. She enclosed the sack in one hand and moved it a little around. Malfoy shuddered and stopped kissing, leaning his forehead against hers with his eyes closed. "Granger, you have to stop doing that."

She let go quickly. "Oh, sorry, did I hurt you?"

He caught her hand and put it back. "No, you didn't hurt me. I mean you have to stop doing exactly the right thing to bring me up or we'll never get to the food."

"Oooh, and we can't have that." She grinned and grabbed his scrotum with one hand and the cock with the other, massaging the two. "You'll have to make it quick, then."

He groaned. "Granger, …"

She moved her head close to his, so that the lips were aligned. "Shut up, Malfoy, and come in." She lifted one of her legs and wrapped it around one of his legs. "Last time, I took care of you, now you will take care of me."

He frowned at the slim witch that he had known all his childhood long as a bookworm and wondered how he could have misjudged her so. It's always the quiet ones, he mused, when in an unusual moment of obeisance he lifted her up under her bottom and did as she requested. Granger let go of his equipment and gripped the slide bar to hold herself up. When he had lifted her, she had slung her other leg around his back as well, pulling him closer. Just to see her hanging there in her shower, her perfect breasts stretched up to him, was certainly enough to make him go on.

When he entered her in one swift thrust, he threw his head back and yelled: "Bloody hell, Granger." She wriggled a bit to adjust to his considerable size. "Hm, I take that back that size doesn't matter," she moaned.

He chuckled despite his painful grimace. "Do you now, Granger? Anyway, do that again."

She grinned: "What, that?" She wriggled again and squeezed her legs a little together.

"Haaahhh, Granger, bloody fucking hell. I will never be able to have sex with another witch again."

Hermione growled. "I should hope so but why is that?"

Draco let his head sink again to her forehead and breathed deeply. "Because you'll squeeze it to death. Honestly, you squeeze me so hard that I have a toothache, and I won't ever be able to find another witch who is as equally tight as you."

Hermione heard the compliment beneath his comment and since she had adjusted by now, she was ready to continue. She pushed her head forward so that Draco lifted his head to look at her. And when their eyes connected she held her lips just over his and breathed "move" onto them.

His grey eyes became almost black and with a snarl, he captured her lips with his and started to thrust into her. With slow even strokes, he brought her up, until she moaned for him to go faster. He smirked and pulled her a little off the wall, stretching her arms, until she was more horizontal. When he had made sure that she could hold herself, he thrust into her faster and faster, watching the water from the shower repel from her taut stomach and her breasts jiggle with the thrusts. He found there was hardly a finer view than that. After a few more strokes he felt her shuddering and heard her moaning. He caught her widened eyes, saw her flushed face and how she licked her lips and lost it again. He fucked as hard and as fast as he possibly could standing on this slippery surface, holding onto her hips and felt her inner walls clenching around him like she wanted to suck him in. Watching as her eyes bulged and the heat spread over her entire face and throat and chest when she threw her head back and cried out in joy and feeling her muscles constrict around him, he felt his balls tighten and after another two, three strokes he released with a deep groan.

At the end of his release, he waited for another minute bent over her stomach, and then carefully placed her back on the floor of the shower stall and looked at her bewildered. She returned his gaze and they stood under the pounding water from the shower and looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

"Granger …," he started, and then shook his head. She smiled and pulled his head down to kiss his nose.

"I know. Me, too."

He still stared at her wide-eyed. Her eyes beamed when she said: "Let's get some lunch, alright?"

He nodded wordlessly.

.

.

After they had finished their shower, got out and dried themselves off, Hermione slipped her dressing gown over and told Malfoy to wait for a second. A minute later she came back with a long dark blue flannel shirt.

"Here," she said. "You can pull that over."

Malfoy sneered. "I will not wear anything that belonged or has been worn by the weasel."

She shook her head. "Ron has never worn this. It's my father's. He'd outgrown it and I confiscated it. I wear it sometimes as a nightshirt in the winter or sometimes simply to cuddle up. It's clean, I haven't used it since I moved in here." For Malfoy that meant, she hadn't worn it when the weasel had been anywhere near it and that was good enough for him. It would be pleasant to wear something that had touched her skin for certain but he preferred to wear his own clothes. He put a hand on her cheek and said sincerely: "I'll just scourgify my clothes, alright?"

She smiled. "Alright."

Draco Malfoy took the shrunk food that had been preserved under a stasis charm out of his pockets and passed it off to Hermione. Then he scourgified his clothes, put them back on, immaculate as always, and sauntered over to the kitchen where Hermione had meanwhile sat the table. The stasis charm taken off, the smell of delicious food filled the kitchen. It was so much that Hermione had to spread the plates and bowls over her kitchen counter and on a side table.

"My goodness," she greeted him coming in, "were you expecting ten guests for lunch? Who's supposed to eat all that?"

Malfoy smirked. "Well, I remember you having a healthy appetite. The breakfast in the hospital is more than pitiable, so, for once, I am hungry. And we can put the stasis charm back on once we are finished and dinner will be served in time."

She sent him a scowl over her shoulder. "I might have an appetite but I don't eat that much."

He stepped up to her and put his arms around her, nuzzling into her hair. "Well, we won't have to worry about dinner, then."

"True," she said, turning around. "Have a seat, then. I don't have the accessories to set a table like you are used to at the Manor, I suppose, … ."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Granger, let's just eat. I don't need a golden spoon. At Hogwarts there were no three sets of silverware either and I survived just fine."

They started with lobster bisque. Hermione tried a spoonful of the red-brown soup and her face lit up in delight. "Hmmm, this is delicious, Draco. Not even in France I had one this good."

The blond man couldn't help but smile over her appreciation. "I take it you had lobster bisque before?"

Hermione waved her soup spoon. "Yes, of course. I may be muggleborn but I wasn't brought up in a poorhouse. My mother made an excellent one but this one is just as good."

She finished her entire bowl and Draco was delighted to find that not a drop was wasted. Even though she ate much more than he was used to in pureblooded ladies in the making, Granger's table manners were impeccable. She didn't even need a napkin. But he was pleased to observe her tongue darting out to clean her mouth corners.

They moved on to sautéed salmon with swiss chard in a basil-cream sauce. And again Draco was delighted over Hermione's enthusiasm over the meal. He was starting to miss the normally accompanying wine, though. He said as much.

"Granger, you wouldn't have any wine in the house, would you?"

She looked up from her forkful of chard and he could see the shock in her face. "Oh, my, Malfoy, I'm so sorry, I totally forgot. Of course, I do." Her fork clattering to her plate, she jumped up and darted to her fridge. Opening the door wide, he could see several bottles of white wine in the door.

"Hm," she said. "Let's take the Sauvignon Blanc with the salmon. It's sautéed, it needs a mild taste. The Pinot Gris would have been good with the bisque but I forgot." (_A/N: Don't think I am a wine connoisseur. I just go with what I like, that's all. Same goes for the menu. I'm just making it up.)_

Draco Malfoy felt his jaw drop and carefully closed his lips over it. She didn't have a white wine, but actually two appropriate ones?

She had taken the bottle out of the fridge and opened it, grabbed white wine glasses from a kitchen cupboard and filled them. When she presented him with his glass, he took it while she said with a crooked smile: "I'm sorry, I don't do vintages. Yet. I know a few wines from what my parents served and told me but I don't have the occasions to expand my knowledge."

A brilliant smile went over Malfoy's face. "Would you want to find more occasions?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, of course. You know I am always for the expansion of knowledge."

"Yes," he grinned. "Yes, I know."

(_A/N: Okay, okay, yes, Mr Darcy said that as a response to Elisabeth's claim that she's rather fond of walking. Credit given to the filmmakers of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie.)_

Her choice had been good. It was a light one, not heavy with the typical aroma of a Sauvignon Blanc but not a bad choice at all. It went well with the fish and the cream sauce of the chard. His regard of Granger went up another notch.

There were about five courses left but they decided that they were fairly satisfied and finished off with a nice Wensleydale, grapes and a late Harvest wine. (_A/N: I like Wallace and Gromit._)

Malfoy was in heaven. To have a meal with a young woman who under normal circumstances ate a lot but was also able to appreciate the meal and was aware of the proper wine going with it, promised many culinary delights enjoyed together. Not that it had been rare in pureblooded dates. Well, the actual eating appreciation of a meal had been, but the women had been well versed in culinary knowledge. He just had not expected it in Granger. He couldn't wait to take her out to dinner to his favourite restaurant in Paris and have her try the house-made foie gras.

When they were done, Hermione cleaned up with a swish of her wand. With another swish, the remaining dishes were stacked up and put back under a stasis charm. And then an awkward silence ensued. All through the meal, aside from her gushing over the food, they had remained fairly quiet. Too quiet. He wasn't used to share long discussions over meals. At the Manor they only exchanged necessities like, pass me the salt please, while eating. Conversations took place after the meal in the Drawing room. But sitting here with Granger, he thought the silence was foreboding and he didn't like it. To Malfoy it was only sinking in that he was sitting in Granger's kitchen, sharing a three star meal with her, after again mind-boggling sex. And when the silence stretched into discomfort, Malfoy did what he always did when discomfort became too hard to bear, he wanted to escape. He readied his body to get up.

"I think, I should go."

Hermione Granger smiled and got up and over to his chair and clambered on top of his lap before he could.

"No, you don't have to go."

He looked away. "I think I should. Mother will wonder where I am and Astoria…."

She growled. "No. Your bond to Astoria is destroyed. We, however, are still magically connected. And from the way the compow dissolved a pureblooded marriage bond, I'd hazard a guess that our connection is stronger than that. I know it is hard to believe as many wizards and witches believe marriage bonds to be unbreakable and everlasting. Until death."

He took a deep breath, trying to control upcoming emotions and memories from the bond ripped out from him.

She lifted his head to hers and arrested his eyes with hers. "Deal with it, Draco. You belong to me."

He felt his throat constrict. In her eyes, he saw the fierceness that had almost frightened him the night before the invasion of Hogwarts. Her fierceness to fight for what she thought was right. And he realised that she would fight for what she thought was hers.

"Did you mean it, then?" he asked with a compressed voice.

Upon her questioning gaze, he added. "On your couch, when we … before the compow acted…you said…," he couldn't finish. Draco Malfoy scrambling for words, now, there's another sight that you don't get to see often.

She understood. "That I take you? That I'll have you?"

He nodded, still captured by her eyes, too conflicted to say more.

Hermione moved her face so close to his that their noses almost touched. "Yes," she breathed on his lips. "Gods, yes." She gave him a soft kiss on his frozen lips and then moved back to let him come to pass with his emotions. He looked like he'd been hit from a bludger repeatedly over the head. Only by his quickly moving eyes could she see that he was still present. When she had moved back, Hermione had brought her chest to the height of his face again and this was where he rested his forehead against a minute later. He took deep breaths while putting his face in the opening of her dressing gown and wrapped his arms around her back, to hold her up against the push of his body against her. She balanced after all precariously over his lap on a small kitchen chair. She enjoyed his warm breaths against the skin of her décolleté and couldn't suppress a shudder when his arms moved down her back to the hem of her bathrobe and back up under it, running his hands over her naked skin below. He stopped for a second on her bottom, gripped the cheeks tightly, then moved his hands further up, under the belt of her robe, so that it loosened and the loose knot came apart at the front.

When the sides of her robe fell open a little with the hold of the belt gone, he moved them a little aside with his nose, exposing her breasts. Still holding her back and not having enough room to navigate bringing his hands around, he brought his mouth to them and suckled softly on each nipple. Hermione sighed. She had had some petting experiences. She wasn't an entire prude and not opposed to the opposite gender touching her. When she had said, she and Theo had become close over a project, she hadn't wanted to go into detail. Draco had been incensed enough already. There had been explorative trials in quiet corners of the library (stolen kisses or gropes, always afraid of being discovered), later with Ron as well as others, or at her apartment with more than one wizard. But she had never slept with them (except for Ron) and she remembered pleasant tingling while touching and being touched but she had never before experienced this burning feeling to be touched in all the right places as she had with Draco Malfoy. He simply knew which buttons to push in her, where to touch her and where to put his mouth and in what way. Or maybe it was that nobody had looked at her as hungrily as Draco Malfoy did just now, looking up, his grey eyes swirling, his breath cooling her moistened nipples, making them constrict almost painfully.

He moved his face down to her breasts again and between suckling and licking and biting softly, murmured: "You have the most beautiful tits I've ever seen, Granger. They are just perfect in shape and the way they respond." He blew on them again and moved his hands over the sway of her back and down over her cheeks and back up, his thumb coming to the front. Hermione felt the flutter in her stomach and heat move up her chest and face. How was he able to do that to her?

He got up and lifted her over to sit on the table top, nestling himself in between her legs. She felt his cock press through his trousers and push in her private area. Her bathrobe flying open from the movement, her entire naked front was exposed to his view and he took ample advantage. Since she had a proper resting place again, he was able to use his hands and using them, he did.

While he distracted her with soft licks of his tongue over her lips alternated with kisses, he moved his hands over her front, his thumbs over her nipples, down her stomach directly in the shock of hair between her legs. He rubbed her nob rhythmically and watched how she one by one succumbed to the pleasure it was giving her; how she panted, how the heat spread over her face and chest, how she spread her legs to give him more room. He inserted his fingers into her and felt her grow wetter the more he moved. When she came closer, she shut her eyes and leaned back with her elbows on the table top. She slung her legs around his waist for balance and to hold her legs open while he pumped into her, his fingers in, his thump on her clit. He had held her eyes until she had to close hers but he was still watching her, slowly climbing the stairs of ultimate pleasure. He watched her breasts heave with her pants and her stomach clench and her hip move with his thrusts. He felt her wetness flow over his fingers and trembled thinking about how it would feel again to be in her. The bulge in his pants became painfully tight and he had to use his free hand to pull down his zipper to free his cock from its restraint and give it a flick. He moaned upon the sensation that shot through his groin and looking at the witch spread out on the table like a delectable feast for him to take, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to hold on much longer. He moved his other hand over her clit to serve with both hands. He would have tongued her again but he wanted to see her come this time. But he had to speed up her climax.

He was so aroused just by watching her in her passion that he couldn't wait to enter her again, even though he knew it would only take him seconds to come as soon as her tight muscles clamped down on him. It wasn't that never before a girl had sucked his prick or that he never before had fingered a woman until she came and he watched her fall apart. There was something to it, to watch what he had the power to do to these girls. And usually he took the power and did whatever he pleased with it, to his own pleasure and the advantage of the women. But with Hermione Granger, it was different. Her passion was raw honesty. She gave him, she handed him the power to make her come because he knew exactly that she could just as easily take it back. In a blink. Or refuse it. And he aimed to please her because he wanted her to take him in, to receive him, to connect. He hungered for the connection with her, the way she pulled him in like he was never to escape again. The other women had been pretty bodies and faces to shag, to put the prick away and then to leave when they were sated. And sometimes it took a few times, but he always knew that in the end he would walk away, until the next time at least. With this witch, he wanted to be taken in and stay. And that was not only because of the mind blowing sex; that was only a bonus. He wanted to sink in and let her wrap him up in her and stay. Quietly. Peacefully. Stay.

He was jostled out of his thoughts when she laid back in climax and pulled him closer to her centre with her slung around legs trembling, her stomach muscles convulsing and her head and shoulders falling back. The way she pulled him close, his head rubbed directly against her wet folds and it was so tempting to slam in, to feel her silky walls pulsing around him. He felt beads of sweat on his forehead and he panted loudly to disperse the tightening of his balls from the stimulation. When she came down, he quickly put her on her feet and turned her around, pressing his body into her back. Lifting her bathrobe, he stroked her derriere cheeks, and whispered in her ear in a hoarse voice that showed his restraint only too clearly: "Ever done it from behind?"

Hermione shook her head, still dazed from the most recent pleasure.

"Do you want to know how it feels, being pushed into the hard table top while I thrust my cock into your pussy?" He licked her ear shell, then bit into the soft skin below.

She trembled and moaned. "That's it, Granger. Give me your sexy little noises, make me hard, so you can feel it in you."

She pushed her bottom against his front, searching friction, and was disappointed, when she felt him retreating. She snarled impatiently.

He chuckled. "Patience, Granger. Let me get it properly out." She heard the sounds of a belt buckle unlatch and the whoosh of cloth falling to the floor. And then felt his hands lifting up the back of her robe up to her shoulders and stroking down her back again and a hard shaft gliding against the cleft between her cheeks, dipping into the moisture of her first climax and rubbing up and down her lower lips. She felt her arms give way, trembling over the sensation, and couldn't wait till he entered her. She mewled.

He chuckled again. "My, Granger, I would have never taken you for an impatient one." He rubbed over her nub with the head of his cock and she moaned deeply. His hands stroking over her behind and the direct stimulation of her clit had her legs shaking. She was going to come again and it wasn't going to take long. "Please, Draco, I'm already close again. You have to come in."

She heard and felt him exhale on her neck and swear quietly under his breath. Then he latched onto her neck and sucked and licked as if he wanted to draw blood like a vampire. Up to her ear and back down her neck again, all the while his head kept rubbing over her clit. Hermione hadn't been joking. She was close. Under his ministrations, especially when he moved his hands around and tweaked her nipples with his fingers, she pushed her privates against his stroking cock, and moaned her heart out, listening to him mumbling "fuck, fuck, fuck" between sucks, and two minutes later she cried out and trembling all over, shattered into a million pieces. And that was when he entered her. Right into her convulsing centre, he shoved his cock and being squeezed by her inner muscles, she felt him shaking behind her and one her way down, she clenched two, three more times and felt him fall apart, his warm come squirting into her with his hot breath of a "Haa, haaa, haaaa" into her neck.

They stayed like that for five more minutes, leaned over on the table top, his front on her back, his arms wrapped around her from behind, hands on her breasts crosswise, his cock in her pussy, slowly relaxing, his come dripping out and running down her legs. When it became too cold to stand like this, she stirred. He reacted immediately but his movements were slow. He slowly lifted his upper body from her.

When his flaccid cock fell out from moving back, he cursed again: "Fuck, Granger, I wanted to get you to three but when you pulled it in…."

She turned around to face him with a tired smile. "It's alright. We have plenty of time." She looked down her front: there were angry red splotches on her hips from the contact with the table and streaks of liquid running down her legs. Malfoy felt his heart skip a beat when he realized that it was his cum running down her legs and that he had done those red marks on her hips. His mouth became dry over the image she presented. She looked thoroughly shagged and the blood shot back into the just relaxed area between his legs. She closed her bathrobe but the image stayed with him and he felt compelled to say something.

"Granger, you are aware that we'll never have another decent conversation again, are you? Whenever you open your mouth, I will think of what you did to me on your couch back there. Whenever you'll stand in the kitchen, I'll think of what we just did and whenever we are in the living room or bedroom or the bathroom I'll think of what transpired there and we will need another go," he groaned. "You'll have to move. You have to move into the Manor with me. It has close to 100 rooms, we'll never run out of space. If we ever do, we'll move again."

She snickered and petted his recovering male appendix. It gave another twitch.

"Give it a rest," she laughed. "I need to get into the shower again and then, I'm going to get dressed. We need to talk." With another laugh, she left the kitchen and Malfoy scourgified his private parts and stowed them back in his pants and trousers, all the while mumbling under his breath: "Not bloody likely. If she even shows a minimal amount of skin, I'll have to do her again."

.

DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG

_A/N: Deep breaths, my friends. This is only the start. It continues in the next chapter. (Grins evilly). Something to look forward to. Taken your enthusiastic feedbacks to the Pillowtalk chapter, I can't wait to read what you have to say to this._

_Happy Boxing Day_

_M_


	24. Connection

_A/N: yay, reviews. Thanks go to (in order of arrival): articccat621, Forbidden1991 (there's more to come and I put a warning out ;-)))), raikko (I haven't put it out yet, we are working our way up to it, the thing with the compow), scv914 (thank you so much, I think you are exaggerating but thank you. And I actually wanted to just get the compow explained and finish it after their shagfest but getting to know my writing style it'll likely take another five chapters to just do that, +"*"*ç%&, so that's likely how much longer it'll take), trpotter24, and taylorfelton97 (who seemed to have just opened an account and put my story on her favourite list first, thanks, hon)_

_Anonymous Reviewer (): If you tell me why it bothers you that Hermione is possessive I'll tell you why. (The things we do to get an additional review. ;-) You could also PM me though.) You have to understand that she's still Hermione Granger, bookworm extraordinaire and she can't quite see why Draco wants her of all people. In her mind, with his history with women, it is likely that he will stray as soon as his interest in her wains, and that would hurt her to no end. So, she's not quite sure if she can trust him. On the other hand, he is incredibly good for her, finally some reward for herself, and she doesn't want to lose that again. They are exploring what they actually have with each other and negotiate their terms for a relationship in these very intensive few days (I know you just had only one, well, half a day. There's more to come, though.) So, being possessive, she is saying 'no' to all kinds of infidelity. It will become clearer over the next chapters where they're at. They are both struggling with their state of mind and emotions with regards to what they have and WHY. If this opened more questions than give answers, keep reading. There is of course another explanation and it will become clearer. Thanks for letting me know. If you had trouble with something, in all likelihood somebody else did as well and I wasn't aware of the trouble in my writing. I'll edit it eventually._

_That's why I want reviews people. Tell me what's wrong when you see something. _

_Cheers_

_By the way, the smut stuff continues in this chapter. They are nowhere near to done._

_._

_EXPLICIT, EXPLICIT, EXPLICIT sexual content. __DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE NOT MATURE_

**.**

**Chapter 18 part 4: Connection**

.

When Granger came back dressed, she had tied her hair in a ponytail and put on a jumper with a turtleneck, which was actually high necked enough to not show any skin and Malfoy was confident that he would be able to think of something other than shagging this formidable witch for longer than five minutes.

He had stayed in the kitchen: sitting on a kitchen chair had the least associations with their new life philosophy to shag each other's brains out. It wasn't that it didn't have any, but the least. They were off to a good start with that as Draco Malfoy felt his brain slightly boggled.

She sat on the other chair across from him, as far removed as possible under the circumstances. Further away would have brought her back to the living room and a whole new gamut of associations again. He didn't want to go there. He was a Malfoy, he prided himself to have total control over himself as his father had trained him to be. Draco was actually a bit upset that his control ended where this witch started.

She seemed to have her head still straight because she made some tea and when they sat in front of their steaming mugs, she started to talk as soon as she sat: "Draco, we'll need to figure out what happened with the bond. Just because we can't find it anymore, doesn't mean it is entirely gone. We'll need to see if Astoria's end has disappeared as well."

"So, you want me to go to Astoria and ask her?" he grumbled. Going to Astoria would mean less time with his newest favourite witch. The Greengrass household was even colder than his own and spending so much time in the accepting warmth of one Hermione Granger didn't make him inclined to venture out into the cold of other people's lives.

"No," she shook her head. "We will go together."

He raised his eyebrows teasingly. "Don't trust me, Granger?" he asked. And regretted it immediately. Why did he have to bring this up? Why would she trust him? But she smiled in response.

"It's not that. I trust you enough not to jump Astoria's bones. I am confident enough that our, how shall I put it, explorations will keep your curiosity home bound for a bit."

He smirked. That was putting it mildly. He was hoping for plenty more "explorations".

"No," she continued, "it's just nothing better than to see for yourself, isn't it? Served me well when I checked on you in sixth year. And if we need to involve the compow we should both be present, right?" He nodded in agreement.

"Will you need the mark to get into their house?" she pressed further.

He grimaced. Good point. "No, I don't. As a pureblood and friend of the family, I have access to their fireplace connection and I can apparate to their doorstep. And if I bring somebody voluntarily, they have access, too." Upon her questioning look, he explained further: "That's to ascertain that nobody can force me to bring them into their house."

She nodded her understanding. "Alright, then. I'd still like to see your mark, though. To see if anything changed." He stretched his left arm out across the table and rolled up the sleeve of his jumper. The branding of the mark was still there but it had blanched a bit. When she touched it, he felt nothing but that was nothing new. It had been the same way the last time she had touched it.

"Hm." She mused. "I don't know what to do with it. I don't understand how your bond can dissolve just like that and take the Dark Mark's magic with it while it's at it."

Malfoy frowned: "I don't think it dissolved on its own, Granger," he said quietly while eyeing his left arm. "The compow had something to do with it, I'm certain."

She frowned as well. "I'm sure you are right, Malfoy, but how? I hate to say it but neither of us thought about the bond back there, when we… well, you know, you were there as well. And why did it do that?"

"No, we didn't think about it but wasn't that what we wanted? And spells have wandered arbitrarily before with minimal intent. That's a part of the compow's power. We wanted the bond gone. Wasn't that the last thing that stood between us?" he ventured carefully.

"Stood between us? As in, we are now free to explore whatever we have?" She looked at him thoughtfully.

"Somewhat like it, yeah."

"Hm," she mused. "What do we have?" she posed the inevitable question, seeking his perspective.

He exhaled sharply through his nose and dug his hands in his hair. "How shall I know, Granger, why don't you tell me?"

"Hey, I'm not the engaged one who sat next to a hospital bed of a woman he works with for three days," she retorted with amusement.

"Granger, do you really think I, Draco Malfoy, would sit next to your bed if you were merely a "woman I work with?" he sneered.

She glanced his way with narrowed eyes. "Then what?"

"I already told you," he mumbled. "I enjoy the comfort of your presence."

She kept her glance. "And that's it?"

He looked defiant. "Well, recently I also discovered that you make a fairly good shag."

She raised one eyebrow. "Oh, a fairly good shag, am I?"

He glared at her. What did she want to hear? He felt pushed in a corner with a spotlight on him. "Well, yeah." When she stayed quiet over his brazen statement and her face fell, he continued: "Why, don't you agree?"

She recovered enough to snort. "Are you asking whether I think I am a good shag or whether I think you are? Because I would have to say, you are tolerable."

If she had hit him with a beater's bat in the face he couldn't have been more shocked. Tolerable. He'd never heard that he was tolerable. From anyone. He jumped up. "Tolerable." His face switched between fury and incredulity.

"Yeah," she said in a bored way, examining her fingernails. "I've had better."

He squeezed his eyes to cat slits, breathing fire. "And who would that have been? The weasel? Don't make me laugh."

"Do I owe you an account of my private life? No, I do not," she countered.

"You said it was only your fourth time," he stormed.

She shrugged angrily. "And then you got engaged."

He narrowed his eyes dangerously. "So, who did you sleep with?"

She shook her head. "Not telling. It's none of your business."

"You're lying," he bristled. "I don't know why but I can smell a lie because I am such an excellent liar myself. And you are very bad at it. I don't know what you are trying to accomplish with your lies but I've had enough. I'll go and see to Astoria."

That got her hackles up. "Alright, and I'll come with you."

"You would need to be nice, for me to take you with me. I'm not sure if you can do that. Right now, I absolutely don't feel it." He glared at her. "Actually, I am not quite certain whether I need you there. I may want to get back together with Astoria."

Hermione was flabbergasted. She had wanted to elicit some kind of declaration from him. But when he had brought it down to a purely sexual level, she felt furious that he degraded their fabulous time together like that. And now he back paddled and didn't want to commit to anything. He dug his heels in and she wasn't able to pin him down on explaining what they had. If they actually had something. Maybe she had imagined everything and they simply had shagged and that was the end of it.

Well, they certainly had a compow and it had done something and they had to see to the possible consequences. She collected herself and stood up straight across from his already standing form.

"You can do that when we get there. But since I am connected to the compow as much as you, I'll come with you and we'll see what Astoria says. And you have no saying in that."

He glared at her again and then dragged her out to the foyer to grab his own and throw her robe to her and when she caught it, he grabbed her arm and apparated with her to the front door of the Greengrass estate. He knocked on the door and when a house-elf opened, announced his name and his wish to see Ms Astoria. The house-elf led them into the entrance hall and went to see if he was to be invited in. Two minutes later it came back and told them, that Ms Astoria would wait for them in her suite. Draco nodded to the elf and strode off, indifferent to the fact that Hermione was struggling to follow the fast stride of his long legs. He stopped in front of imposing doors and knocked. "Enter" came softly from within and he opened the door and stepped through, Hermione quickly squeezing behind before he closed the door in her face.

"Draco," Astoria exclaimed when she saw him. She jumped up from her sofa and ran to him to fall in his arms. He embraced her and made soothing noises in her hair. Hermione followed the scene with a burn in her stomach area that made her exhale loudly. Astoria became aware of her and looked up.

"Oh," she said. "What is she doing here?" It wasn't unfriendly, but it was clear that Astoria was more than astonished that he would bring the woman who apparently had captured his heart to the house of his supposedly former but yet still fiancée.

"Being her bothersome self," Malfoy snarled.

Astoria looked at him queerly. "Draco, what's gotten into you?"

"Nothing," he bit back. "But I need to know if you felt something magical before lunch time today because I think that our bond is gone."

Astoria blanched. "Felt something? Did I feel something? Are you referring to the fact that I felt like my magic was being ripped out from me and ripping me to shreds in the process? I thought I was going to die, perhaps as a punishment for breaking off the engagement."

Hermione breathed. Astoria had felt the same thing. The bond was gone. She felt sorry that Astoria had to suffer such but at least she could be sure now that Draco was free to pursue whatever witch he wanted. Well, whoever that was going to be, she thought with the feeling of a stone falling in her stomach. Because she wasn't sure anymore that it would be her.

"I'm sorry, Tori, it's not right that you had to suffer. Did anybody help you?"

Hermione felt a sting when she heard Malfoy be so gentle with the other woman. He even had a term of endearment for her. To her, he always said "Granger", like he had always done, even back in school when they hadn't liked each other at all. But when Astoria answered his question, her shock couldn't be any bigger.

"Yes, fortunately, Theo was here. He held me. I don't know what I would have done without him." Astoria admitted quietly.

And out from the shadows by the drawn window stepped Theodore Nott into the firelight. The other young man was just as tall as Draco but of different features. Where Draco stood out by his light hair and pale but handsome features, Theo had more of a natural 'boy-next-door' quality. He had brown hair and greenish blue eyes and looked naturally charming with a calm disposition, different to Draco's pejorative temper. He stood right next to Astoria, where he looked splendid, but his focus was on Hermione.

"Hermione?" he addressed her quietly.

"Theo?" she breathed, her eyes widening. Then they stood for half a minute staring at each other, undisturbed by the other occupants of the room who didn't know what to make from the unexpected closeness of Granger and Nott. Finally, Hermione managed to say: "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I came to visit Astoria and lucky, I did. Whatever magic happened to her was terrible," he answered her question without taking his eyes off her.

"Well, well, well," they were interrupted by a sharp, biting voice that had accompanied them all through their school time at Hogwarts, "it seems you two are right cosy with each other." They both turned startled at the harsh intrusion towards the source to look at Draco Malfoy sneering at them. Hermione was startled to see the dangerous glint in his eyes.

Theo glanced tiredly at his friend who glared back. To a growl from Draco Malfoy, he put a hand on Hermione's shoulder and said: "Could I talk to you for a minute privately?"

Hermione nodded and they stepped over to the fireplace, turning their backs to their companions.

"What did you do?" he asked quietly. He didn't need to explain more. She knew exactly what he meant.

She lowered her head. "Draco and I are connected by a special magic. It simply dissolved the bond."

"Ha," Theo huffed. "It dissolved an unbreakable marriage bond."

"Yes," she confirmed.

"And are you connected by anything else?" he inquired further.

"Well," Hermione started, then she paused and looked to the floor, because she didn't know how to continue.

"I see," Theo said after a minute of waiting. "Let me tell you, Hermione. The Draco Malfoy I know and grew up with has never and would never sit by somebody's bedside in a hospital to ascertain that she actually woke up again. So, whatever you did to him has affected him deeply. I think it goes back further than the last few months you've been working together, doesn't it?" He took her startled look as confirmation and continued with a nod. "I certainly noticed how in sixth year he laid off of you because I had my eye on you as well. I also saw him move his face out of the light, so that one couldn't see his expression every time somebody mentioned "Potter's mudblood". And you can see by his growl now that he doesn't even like me speaking to you. He's not easy to deal with and he has a big mouth but he's more bark than bite. Maybe that helps."

Hermione finally looked up and into the blue eyes of a very good friend. Maybe blue wasn't that bad after all. Besides, Theo's eyes were more greenish than blue, come to think of it. He lifted an eyebrow in question. She nodded and he smiled in reply. Encouraged, she asked her own question. "And how about you? Is Astoria good for you?"

It was Theo's turn to look to the floor as his smile melted of his face. "Yes. I've liked her for a long time. But we were never sure if we could have a future together. And when Malfoy snatched her up, I was devastated." He shook in suppressed anger. Hermione put a calming hand on his cheek and heard Draco's growl behind her.

"Yes, well, and now she's yours," she said reassuringly. "Draco will have to go talk to her parents and then might be a good time to talk to her father, you know, to even the blow."

He managed a small smile. "You think?"

"Absolutely." He nodded at her reply.

Draco's voice came across to them: "Do you think I can leave you two love birds alone here to talk to the Greengrasses or will I regret that?

Hermione and Theo gave each other one more reassuring smile and an embrace while they heard another snarl and then turned to their respective partners.

Draco Malfoy awaited her with blazing eyes. She stood defiantly across from him and dared him to say anything about her friendship with Theo Nott.

"Are you quite done?" he snarled.

"Yes, I am done," she replied coldly. Draco turned on the spot and walked out of the room, expecting the others to follow him. Astoria fell in line behind him and Hermione and Theo trundled after.

When they came to the Drawing room, Astoria turned to Theo and said quietly: "You'll have to wait here until we come back out, alright?" Theo stroked her cheek and nodded in reply.

Draco didn't spare a glance to Hermione and turned to the doors that sprang open as if on command, admitting them. He stepped through, Astoria by his side and the doors closed behind them.

Hermione and Theo remained behind but were able to listen to the conversation in the room. Hermione knew that eavesdropping was wrong but in this case, she would bend the rules a bit.

After the usual pleasantries, Mr Greengrass addressed Draco. "What can I do for you, my boy?"

"I've come to tell you that Astoria's and my betrothal bond is broken. As per your request, we inform you that we are officially no longer engaged."

Hermione heard a snarling cry. "Quiet, woman," Mr Greengrass barked at his wife. Hermione shuddered. What a way to treat your spouse.

"How can you be sure, Draco?" Although Hermione couldn't see, she was certain that Malfoy likely shrugged.

"See for yourself," he said after a brief pause.

"Oh, I will," Mr Greengrass said menacingly. "Revelio coniunctus nuptialis" the listeners in the hallway heard and then another pause ensued.

Mr Greengrass spoke up again and they could hear his appal through the door. "The spell is negative. There is indeed no bond between you. But how can that be? These bonds are unbreakable."

Through the door, Hermione heard the very unpleasant voice of Mrs Greengrass snarling: "Oh, the Malfoy's are going to the dogs. First, the heir snatched up my baby and deflowered her and now, he doesn't want her anymore. The shame. What do you think you will have to do to make up for it?"

"Mother" Astoria barked, shocking both her parents into silence for a second. "Draco behaved only with the utmost respect and in the most gentlemanly fashion toward me. He has nothing to stand up for. There can be no talk of him 'deflowering' me and shame resulting. If I ever hear any gossip of that kind, I'll know where it came from." Listening, Hermione lifted an eyebrow at Theo who did the same. It seemed Astoria was growing a spine.

She seemed to have taken heart by the fact that she had stunned her parents into silence because she continued: "We have mutually decided that our match was not the best of choice and to break our engagement. We live in the 20th century and if two young people notice that they are not right for each other, they should have the option of splitting their union. Especially if they are not married yet. You said we could do that if we can dissolve the bond and that has been done. You will make it official that Draco and I are no longer engaged. Period. And I believe there is somebody else waiting to speak with you, father."

After more empty pleasantries and more snarls from Mrs Greengrass, Draco and Astoria took their leave and came back out into the hallway in front of the room, allowing Theo entrance. Theo gave one last look at Hermione who smiled encouragingly at him and received a nervous smile back. Then he turned and walked in where he had to pass by Draco who had seen their exchange and glared at his friend. Before the doors fell shut when Theo was halfway across the room Hermione heard him say: "Mr Greengrass, could I have a private conversation with you, regarding your daughter Astoria?"

Hermione had just received a glimpse of Mr and Mrs Greengrass' angry faces. Where Astoria had gotten her gentleness, she didn't know, because although fairly handsome, Mrs Greengrass looked positively livid and not in an attractive way. Mr Greengrass had simply looked put out.

When the doors had shut, blocking Theo out, Draco turned to Astoria and embraced her again. "Shall I see you back to your room, Tori?" he asked gently. Hermione felt her throat constrict. How could he be so gentle with this woman when he constantly snarled at her?

Astoria shook her head. "No, thank you. I'd like to wait here."

Draco took her face in his hands and lifted it to see if she told the truth. But Astoria held his gaze and after a minute, he simply gave her a quick peck on her lips and said "Bye, Tori."

She hugged him once more and dug her hands in his hair. "Bye, Draco. Remember your promise." With that she peeked sideways to where Hermione stood who growled upon seeing them so intimately close together.

Draco chuckled. "I will," he said and with a last hug he let go. He turned toward Hermione and instantly his face turned furiously cold again, in a way that made Hermione almost afraid. Such a fury turned against her. But then, she remembered that she was equally furious. He stalked toward her and grabbed her arm to pull her to the front door of the Greengrass residence but Astoria called him back one more time.

"Draco?" He turned to his former fiancée. "Remember our talk at St. Mungo's," Astoria added.

Hermione felt the air go out a little from the blond man holding her arm like a vice. He quietly nodded, loosened his grip a little and then turned back into the direction toward the exit of the house. Hermione let herself be led by him because she didn't know her way around here. When they had reached the entrance hall, he pushed her out the front door and stepped right behind. He grabbed her arm and together they apparated into her foyer.

He turned on her as soon as they hit her carpet. "What did you not tell me about you and Nott? There was definitely more than a work project judged by the way you two needed a quiet talk," he snarled.

She blustered: "And you? Being all gentle and cuddly-cosy with your ex-fiancée? Did you actually sleep with her?"

He sneered, a facial expression that she hadn't seen turned against her in quite a while. "Of course I did. We were engaged, after all."

With blazing eyes, she yelled: "After what we had, you go and sleep with another woman?"

"After what we had," he scoffed, "And what did we have, Granger, other than an amazing shag?"

"That's all it ever was to you, wasn't it? An amazing shag? Can you never look past a sexual bliss? Can you never see a woman as more than something that gives you pleasure?" she countered enraged.

"And why should I do that, if that is all they ever are to me?" he hissed back.

That hurt. But Hermione ignored the sting in her chest. "You abysmal liar. You said yourself that our sex was special. You wanted us to be together forever," she yelled.

"I had resigned myself to it because I thought it was meant to be. And you discarded that and said how stupid myths were. And the second time you called me out and, rightfully in your opinion, exclaimed that I would never have the guts to date you against the opposition of the world," he yelled back.

"And you went away in a childishly sullen way and got engaged to a girl who would look good on your arm and nothing else and slept with her after I gave myself to you. You stupid prick," she stormed on.

"I thought I was never going to have that again because you rejected me," he hissed (because a Malfoy doesn't really yell. No, really).

"I didn't reject you. What was I supposed to believe, that the high and mighty Draco Malfoy had a sudden change of heart and fell for the girl he had taunted and bullied all through her childhood?"

Draco Malfoy was a master of coldness and he showed it. "How sudden is sudden to you because I have been working an incredible magic with a woman for the last five months? And when I slept with her I came to realize that she fit me like a satin glove."

"Hrrgn, you are driving me insane with your self-righteousness." Hermione turned away from him, so stung by his coldness that she actually didn't register his words, dug her hands in her hair and almost pulled on them.

"Well, did you not go and seek outside comfort, as you claimed?" He sneered again, a furious burn in his eyes betraying his indifference.

She turned back to him: "Not in the arms of another male, I didn't. So I lied. I had my girlfriends support me. I could have never gone and have sex with another man right away. And talking about it, was it good with Astoria?"

He shrugged. "It was normal. Not as explosive as with you, but fulfilling enough."

Hermione snarled, beside herself. Draco added with narrowed eyes: "You wanted to know."

And then, Hermione lost it. She attacked him with another snarl and her fists. Her first blow landed on his sternum and the next on his stomach, the third also. Her fists were nowhere comparable to a brawl amongst men and she didn't even try to get a hit in his face but given that she put her full fury behind them, they hurt enough. After his first shock of being beaten up by a slim woman like Granger, Draco's brain jump started again and he brought his hands up in time to prevent her fourth hit. He caught her incoming fist in his larger hand and the other fist in the other and shoved her against the wall behind her. He pushed his body against hers to prevent her from gaining any momentum for her fists again and caged her in with his arms on both sides of her.

Holding the slim woman shaking in fury, gave a jolt through his body from head to toe. He felt it concentrating somewhere in the middle.

"Honeymoon already over, Granger?" he snarled. She tried to free herself from his hold, trembling in fury, clawing at his arms, trying to make a break. "Let me go, Malfoy," she hissed with a strangely clogged up voice.

That doused him like the cold shower he had taken after her supposed rejection. Let me go, she'd said. Did he want to let her go? No. Abso-fucking-lutely no. Granger was furiously jealous, that much was obvious, about the fact that he had been with Astoria after she had been with him. Just like he was jealous of what might have happened between her and Nott. All of which was ancient history. The realization drove the point home that he didn't want anybody else to have her. Not Nott, not the weasel, not anybody. Because he wanted to claim her. She was his to claim. She was his witch and nobody else was ever going to touch her, ever again.

"No," he tried to calm the furiously scrambling witch in his arms with a firm voice. To no avail. She took his denial as a refusal to let her loose and she continued to snarl, she sobbed, she clawed at him, she fisted him on his chest. He pushed his body closer to push her flat against the wall and put his mouth right next to her ear. She shook her head wildly to shake him off but he held fast.

"No, Granger, stop." But she didn't. She fought him tooth and nail, literally. Her fingernails clawing on his (luckily covered) chest, she bit him in the jaw as the only place she could reach. He yelped and moved his head a little away from her but still close enough to reach her earlobe. He took that between his teeth and growled in her ear.

That got her attention long enough to stop scrambling for a bit. She didn't want to lose her ear. Hanging in his arms, she panted from her exertion. When he could be sure that she wouldn't start beating him again when he let go of her, he pulled his face in front of hers and captured her eyes. They were red-rimmed and her usually warm brown eyes were cold like a dark forest in the winter and he felt bereft of her warmth. She was breathing heavily and still trembled but she seemed to have enough control to not beat him again.

He waited for a moment to ensure that she saw him when she looked at his eyes and said: "No, Hermione. I won't let you go."

There was a certain ring to his words that made them hang in the air for a few seconds.

He could see that she heard the words but they hadn't connected yet in her brain. She still stood trembling, panting through her open lips, her hair dishevelled, her eyes red and cold, her cheeks wet, trying to come to terms. Who knew that even a brain like Hermione Granger's could be shocked into sluggishness?

There was only one thing. He kissed her hard. And was jolted again by her response. She kissed back immediately as if she wanted to bite off his lips and devour them for a snack. Pulling, sucking, biting, and panting into his mouth, her fierceness made his cock spring to attention in about five seconds flat. And the fact that she ripped on his shirt to get it off didn't really calm the situation at all.

And he loved it. He'd had urgent sex before. Flirting all night, teasing, stolen touches until he felt that his pants would burst and he just had to get into the other witch's knickers, going to a room or a quiet corner and not making it to any resting place, ripping clothes off or just lifting them up because there was no time and taking her against a wall in quick urgent strokes. He'd been there before. Several times. But only for lust. Never before because he was afraid that somebody else would take the witch he wanted. Never before to lay a claim, to mark the woman for him alone, to give himself over so she would take him for her. He wanted to get in deeper than he'd ever been, to shoot his sperm deep into her body, to leave a mark, to brand her for him and him alone, so she would give off his odour and dispel all other men. He wanted to give her pleasures she would never ever forget, so she would never look at another man, because nobody else could give her what he could.

Distracted by the movements of her lips, it took a few seconds until he realized that her hands were already pulling on his waistband and when she'd wrenched it open, dug her hands in to claim his naked bottom. With her forearms behind his back she pushed his trousers to the floor and let his boxers follow. He realized that she had undressed him efficiently with very few movements and that he stood naked in front of her, his leg clothes pooled around his feet. With a snarl, he went for her garments, and pulled her turtleneck over her head, dislodging the ponytail in the process, so that her hair tumbled down around her shoulders again. He ripped open her waistband, so that the button came off with a pang and shoved her trousers and knickers down her legs. She helped by lifting her feet up to pull out. Coming back up, he freed his feet as well by stepping on his clothes to pull his feet out and then aligned his body in front of hers. He picked her up under the bum and she spread her legs and wrapped them around his back automatically. Before he had found his balance properly again, he shoved his cock into her and was again captured by her tightness that gripped him so he could feel it constrict into his hair. The stimulation was almost too much and he started shaking and groaned and panted into her mouth while he struggled to keep himself and her upright and to find the balance to move.

Hermione threw her head back with a gasp. The way he filled her up with no foreplay made her feel as if he'd shoved a hot rod into her innermost, flooding her entire pelvic area with heat. His trembling, his panting, his need for her drove her high. She wanted this wizard to shove in deeper than ever before. She wanted him so deep that he would push her brain out on the other side; her stupid brain that would never shut up and taint every true emotion. She wanted him literally to fuck her brains out, to make a point to her brain to shut the fuck up.

She closed her legs tighter around his hips to pull him further in and clenched her inner muscles for the same reason. "Granger," the tall blond wizard in her whimpered. "Granger, you're strangling it."

"Ha," Hermione huffed and relaxed her inner muscles for a bit, giving him enough leeway to thrust. The heat in her pelvis intensified when he pulled his cock back to start a thrust, and it quivered. When he rammed it back in, the heat coiled and after a few more slams it sprang out and exploded. The inner impact threw her back into the wall, with a long scream of "Aaaaahhhhh", stretching out her upper body to counterbalance the strangulation that her inner muscles in her pelvis were doing to the intruder of her bodily cavern.

The intruder never had a chance. He was compressed to the point that his owner felt his eyes bulge and his gum constrict, while he continued to trust a few more times, whimpering "Granger" on every thrust, and while he felt his own back arch, pushed his cock in so deep that he felt he'd reached the end of her channel and then some.

With a staccato whimper of "A-a-a-a" he felt his come shoot out, deep into her, while his bum muscles pushed after. Three, four, five squirts later, he felt his muscles relax enough so he could lean slowly forward and into her shoulder. He was able to breathe again, although with difficulty.

"Granger," he panted. "Granger, you're taking all the fun out of fucking because I don't get to move anymore. There is no fucking movement in shagging you."

She huffed between pants and panted one laugh before she slapped his shoulder.

"It's so like you to complain about something like this."

"Ha," he panted. "That's always the best part, the fucking movements. And there is none with you. Bloody hell."

"Well," she panted. "Wait for the next time. Or the one after that."

He chuckled. Oh, yeah, the next time. If he didn't blow his brain out, one of these days because he came too fucking hard. Feeling his legs give way, he wasn't able to hold them up anymore and he slowly glided down the wall onto his knees and put her gently on his lap, his head still supported on her shoulder, his hands around her waist holding her up. He felt her heavy breathing by the movement of her rips under his hands and her soft skin now exceedingly hot.

And when he realized that he was kneeling naked, panting and exhaustingly satisfied in the foyer of Hermione Granger's apartment, who had ripped his clothes off a few minutes ago, after they had ripped each other's heads off in jealousy shortly before that, and who had exploded in climax around him as soon as he shoved his cock into her, which by the way was still were he had put it, he couldn't help but laugh. The situation was so effing ridiculous that he couldn't hold back the bubbling laughter in his stomach. And when he heard her giggle with him, he laughed some more.

Hermione was stunned. Satisfied, yes, but totally stunned. Jealous. She had been jealous over the fact that Malfoy had slept with his fiancée after sleeping with her when they had never even been together. No exclusiveness to be claimed. And she had lost her temper over the fact that he acted so nonchalantly about it; like it hadn't meant anything to him to be with her. Even with Ron she had been only angered and disappointed and a little hurt that he didn't see her for what she was. But never so green-eyed monstrously jealous that she lost control. And then she tore Draco Malfoy's clothes off because she wanted him, deep, deep in her. She wanted him to drive her to new extremes. And he had done that and now he was kneeling under her, holding her up with his wonderful hands on her waist and laughing. His whole body shook in amusement. She had never seen him in such delight.

"Malfoy, are you shaking with laugher?" she asked incredulously.

He bubbled over with unrestrained laughter and she had to giggle with him over his delight. And then he laughed some more. It was a wonderful sound. She had never heard him laugh out loud before. Normally, he chuckled, he snorted, at best he chortled, but never full out laughed. It was a sound that came from the middle of his chest and freed his entire demeanour. Hermione had to smile at his delight.

He didn't answer her question but asked one of his own instead: "Granger, are there any more men who could potentially lay a claim on you?"

She raised one eyebrow. "Lay a claim on me? As in 'claim me for their own'? I don't think I would allow that."

He grinned at her, not quite calmed from his bout of laughter. "I didn't ask whether you would allow that. I asked whether there are more men who could possibly think they had any right to come close to you and to touch you without asking permission first? Like Nott and the weasel?"

Hermione eyed him thoughtfully. Behind his worry less façade there was an intensity that wasn't quite new with Draco Malfoy but new in this context.

Finally she shook her head. "No," she said. "Cormac never had a shot and Viktor never got past the kissing. Anthony and a few others left on their own accord and cannot claim any freedom with me at all."

His face morphed into a frown. "How many more men are there who have touched you?"

She rolled her eyes. "They didn't 'touch' me. I snogged most of them, and there were two or three who I got to petting with, Theo was one of them. We met in the library in sixth year. I care for him because he is a very kind person. Ron, of course, was another one, he's the only other wizard I slept with, except you, and there was a wizard five years my senior that I met at the Ministry who showed me a thing or two."

"What's his name?" Malfoy demanded with a snarl.

She shook her head again. "It's not important. We separated amicably. Nobody has "a claim" on me." She grinned. "Why, do you want to stake one?"

He held her eyes in a way that made her stomach flutter nervously; an intense look that went all the way down to her toes.

"Yes," he said with conviction. Whether he wanted to convince her or himself wasn't quite certain. "I can't stand the thought of you willingly let somebody else touch you, so, I have to claim you."

Hermione's jaw fell; all the way down to her knees. "Excuse me?"

"From today on, you will date me and exclusively me and only me, Granger, understood?"

"Exclusive and only are synonyms in that context."

"Just to drive the point home, Granger," he snarled. "Do you understand that you are dating me and only me from now on?"

"Dating as in going out in public, being seen together and claiming each other as a partner with the understanding of a sexual relationship?" Hermione tried to clarify breathlessly.

"I believe that is the very definition of dating, Granger, yes. How typical of you to answer with a textbook definition. Do you understand or do I have to lock you in my dungeon or marry you to make you exclusively mine?" He was still snarling.

She smiled. "You don't have to marry me. We can just figure out what we want together."

He looked at her piercingly, a slight smile around his mouth. "Marriage may be inevitable, Hermione."

She put her arms around his shoulders and kissed him softly. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, alright?" He returned her kiss and it quickly developed into breathless snogging with deep tongue strokes. She felt his renewed engagement in her pelvis. When she detached her lips and looked down to where they were still connected, he mumbled:

"It's like I took an aphrodisiac, it won't stay down."

Hermione giggled. "I think that's an excellent problem to have. At least, you can move now without the danger of exploding right away, because my orgasm reservoir is quite depleted for now."

His eyes brightened: "What an excellent idea."

She grinned. "How about we move it out of the foyer and into my cosy bedroom for more exploration?"

He smirked. "Well, well, it does pay after all to have the brightest witch of our age. You are full of excellent ideas at the moment. Well, up you go."

"I think, you'll need to give me a hand, I am somewhat stuck on something."

He laughed. Lifting her up and carrying her over to her bedroom where the explorations continued, was child's play.

.

**Hermione's POV:**

He placed me gently on my wide bed, lay down next to me and went on exploring every nook and cranny of my body with his lips and fingers and eyes. He was apparently quite shameless when it came to exhibiting his body because he moved deliberately around me, to this body part or another, and wasn't even timid about the fact that his cock stood out from his groin, still glistened with our mutual fluids. But then, he really had nothing to complain about. He was a beautiful specimen of man. From my lying position I saw the muscles of his upper body move sinuously under his skin whenever he changed his position around me, and he did that frequently. I couldn't believe that I should be the lucky one to land this handsome (and loaded, by Gryffindor) young man. I was just a bookworm with an okay body, how could he possibly want me? The fact that we were so unevenly matched made me self-conscious. I wasn't used to display my body. I didn't find it ugly but it did not compare with Draco's shapely muscles and well-shaped form. I could deal with him taking my hand up and licking and sucking on each of my fingers, even though I blushed when I saw him looking at me to gauge my reaction to his obviously sexually charged game. I could deal with his obvious enjoyment and enrapture with my breasts because I knew they were alright. I could also deal with the fact that it was incredibly stimulating for him when he was in me. I had no control over the shape of my body parts, but apparently we fit very well in that area. What I couldn't deal with was when he behaved like he wanted the entire package of me because I didn't understand why. When he moved down and over my body and kissed every square centimetre of it. When he took one leg in his hands and stroked it and looked up my entire body like he had never seen anything like it. Because that couldn't be true. He had seen many female bodies naked and I was fairly certain that most of them were more beautiful than mine. And now he wanted to date me. My mind couldn't wrap itself around the idea.

For our next coupling he forewent any extra stimulation intentionally. He had aligned his body over mine and whispered hoarsely against my lips: "Granger, I want to be in you."

He had awaited my agreeing nod and opening of my legs and had slowly entered me again (for the fourth or fifth time that day, I'd lost count). "Wrap your legs around me," he had ordered gently, and when I had complied, he had supported himself on his elbows next to my body and shuttled slowly in and out. It had been very sensual, like a warm bath and we had looked each other in the eyes until he needed to kiss me again. After that I had stretched my arms over my head and enjoyed the heat spreading slowly through my stomach and up to my chest. The coiling in my stomach compelled me to raise my legs further and when I had my knees almost behind his shoulder blade, he groaned deeply when I placed my feet on his back. To accommodate for the changed height, he raised himself up on his knees but left his elbows where they were and continued his stroking like that. But the quiet time had come to an end: he was grunting now in pleasure and even though I was thoroughly wet and lubricated I felt the blood surge through his member. I knew when he started his requisite cursing that he wasn't far off and I squeezed my inner muscles for his and my own stimulation. He picked up speed and to the sound of flesh slapping on flesh and his aroused cursing and panting and groaning, I felt myself coming in a wave like tropically warm water flowing over me and sating me. I'd never been more relaxed in my entire life. Not even on a beach vacation because there were always books to read and things to catch up on. Just to lie here, breathe our scent in deeply and let the bliss sweep over me and feel Draco's warm liquid pulse into me with his last slams while he screamed through clenched teeth like a man in pain or rapture, was the best feeling ever.

We fell asleep after that to give our bodies a much needed rest. Heck, we'd been shagging like rabbits since before lunch and had an interlude at the Greengrasses in between. Talk about a full day.

When I awoke a while later because Crookshanks meowed in the kitchen, I extricated myself from the pile of limbs and made my way over to the kitchen to feed my cat. After a detour to the bathroom I came back to my room to see Draco still sleeping peacefully between my sheets. He slept on his back and since the evening had moved into the night, the moon was shining in my bedroom window, casting an eerie light over my already pale lover.

He was an attentive lover. Maybe that was his success' secret. He took pleasure in giving pleasure and my not-very-spoilt self appreciated it; and all the other women likely as well. Even though I didn't yet understand why he wanted to give me pleasure in particular, I got used to the idea that it was a mutual concept. I wanted to be able to give him pleasure as well. Actively, not only because I was incidentally shaped to give him stimulation. Thinking back, his cock head had filled my mouth quite pleasantly and he had liked it very much last time and seeing his penis bathed in moonlight, not even in sleep fully flaccid, made me tingle, thinking about what it did to me. And nobody can ever say that Hermione Granger does not want to improve. I was going to try every single thing that I ever read about. What, did you think I was an un-educated virgin before I gave my virginity to Ron? Did you, really?

I crawled over him, positioned myself over his cock and gave its head a tentative lick. It twitched. I put my lips over it and dragged my tongue once over the top. It tasted salty and like my taste that I had licked from his lips earlier. He stirred and his cock twitched again and came up a bit. I inhaled deeply and then blew hot air on it through my mouth and sucked once. Draco shuddered and whimpered in his sleep and his cock stood to half-mast. On the next suck with a tongue flick, I got it to three quarter up and when I gave it a full lick from bottom to top it stood to full attention and Draco Malfoy woke up with a groan. He blinked a few times disoriented and when it came to him where he was, he looked around searching for me. Another suck made him aware of where exactly I was and he looked down to see me kneeling between his legs.

He asked hoarsely: "Granger, what are you doing?"

I smirked. "I'm improving my skills."

He looked at me incredulously. "You are improving your skills," he repeated monotone.

I shrugged. "Yeah, I have close to no experience when it comes to sucking off and I'd like to change that. Is that a problem for you?"

He leered. "Not at all. I like a woman's mouth over my cock. I just wanted to point out that you don't have to do that, so don't come after and say I forced you or any such crap."

And my sassy mouth got the better of me. "Oh, Malfoy, you are such a romantic. Seems your politeness centre needs a warm-up period when you wake. Do you want it or not?"

He waved his hand then leaned back. "By all means, be my guest. If we do this more often in the future, you will have to do it anyway eventually. I absolutely demand that service from the woman I'm with every once in a while. You might actually do well practising a bit."

I fumed. Here I was thinking about giving him pleasure and he talked about it becoming part of my "services"? Well, nobody ever said that Hermione Granger couldn't put theory into action either. I had learned most wand movements from books, for crying out loud.

I put my mouth over his cock again and heard him inhale. I swirled my tongue over the top and tickled the underside. "Yeah, not too bad, that works alright," he dared to comment. I closed my teeth very, very gently around the head (I knew that's a no-no, I just wanted to see his reaction, the presumptuous arse.) and heard him sharply inhale.

"Ah, Granger, no, never teeth, you should know that." I left my teeth where they were and flicked the tongue over the top again. His breathing rhythm became a bit speedier but he wanted to keep the upper hand.

"Granger, didn't you hear me? Take those teeth away."

I retracted the teeth for now, being the ever obedient student that I was, and took him in deep, then sucked on my way back up. "Ah," he said, relaxing, "that's more like it. Keep that up."

I could barely suppress a chuckle. Hm, what did that one book say: make a ring out of your thumb and index finger and wrap them around the base with slight pressure. Done. Take the sack in the other hand and move it very lightly. Done. Vibration works well, too, said the book, so I hummed with him sliding deep. Malfoy was quiet except for the speedier breathing yet again.

"Granger, what…" he tried to say again but I pulled another card from my (theoretical) repertoire. With the ring and the sack massage and the humming and going deep, I sucked on the way up and flicked the tongue when I was at the top and whatever he was going to say got stuck in his throat. I did that a few times and his incessant talking stopped. Instead he panted quite heavily. I brought the teeth back into play again and kicked it up another notch. Ring (a little more pressure and moving it up and down), sack massage with finger going down between the cheeks to rub there, humming, sinking deep, sucking up, flick on top and teeth to the crown (very, very gentle). He brought his arms back around as if pulling all feeling closer to his centre and he held them over his stomach in a rather stiff way. He had closed his eyes, breathing in short puffs and I just knew that all his focus was on the pleasurable feeling on and around his cock. I increased the speed. It required some coordination to do all these things at once but nobody could say, well, you know. Focus is key.

With the increased speed, Malfoy's body took over and his hips moved automatically, surging into my mouth. With his movement I let off of the sack massage but I kept my finger on the pressure point right below. I varied the rhythms and alternated tongue flick with sucks and teeth and was satisfied when I heard him panting and groaning in the same rhythm as his hips moved. And then when he started cursing again, I increased my effort once more because I knew he was close to explosion. I increased the tongue flicks on top and the speed of the ring and went deep with humming only on occasion. And when I felt the balls constrict and the blood surge in, I went very deep down, so that his head touched my throat, two, three times and when he cried: "Ah, Granger, what are you doing, what are ya-a-aahaahahaaaha," I felt his come ejaculate into my mouth. I sucked a few more times to prolong his climax to his tortured cries, swallowed the whole come and when the squirting stopped, moved up to his face where his eyes were closed and he looked like he was in pain and, licking my lips, I asked sweetly: "So, what do you think I need to practice most, the sucking, the humming or the tongue licks?"

His eyes snapped open and I looked into a dark grey that I had never seen before. He growled deep in his chest and his face took on a very menacing look. With a sudden surge of strength he flipped me over and bending over me he said: "You are going to pay for this, Granger." Before my giggle broke through, he was already down between my legs and eating my pussy out. I gasped at the overwhelming sensation of his forceful venture.

And I realized something about Draco Malfoy. I realized that when he was uncomfortable, he snarled at you. And he could be uncomfortable especially when people did something nice for him because he wasn't used to it. Or well, not without an expectation of reciprocation, so that by giving him or doing something for him, they put the ball in his court, bringing him in a position where he felt he owed them something. I suspected that was custom with the Slytherin's. And he didn't like it at all. When he snarled at you, he shocked you with either the opposite of what he thought or something extremely over the top to mask his true intentions or believes. So when he snarled at me now, he was uncomfortable with me sucking him off and it begged the question why. When he had boasted he demanded that of all women he was with eventually, it was over the top. So, why was he uncomfortable if I did it? Because I was not like the other women. And the answer to that question, he had already given me on the day when I had "rejected" him the second time, the day he had searched me out to release him of the burden of his wrong decision. My presence was soothing and accepting to him. Was that so hard for him to come by? Peace and acceptance? As the Malfoy heir, owner of millions of Galleons, at the top of wizard society (well, until Voldemort's fall), sought out by woman after woman, didn't he feel accepted? His father had always made it very clear that Draco was not doing well enough, that he fell short of Harry's Quidditch and flying skills, of my academic skills and who knew what else. He had always received whatever he wished because his status as a pureblooded dynasty heir required that he had everything under the sun but he had been told at the same time that he was not up to expectations. Could that have left him with the feeling of never being good enough? Was that what I gave him? If I accepted him, as a woman from the opposite end, a girl he had teased all her school career through, did that fill a need in him?

Yes. I believe that's exactly what it was. How could that be enough for him to want me? And would that be enough for me? We would figure that out in the future. But it sank in that I was in a position to give him something that "other women" simply didn't.

I gasped at a stroke over my sensitive centre and that put my attention back to the presence. To the fact that I was lying on my bed with Draco Malfoy between my legs nipping, licking, stroking my nob as if it was the centre of the universe and he wanted to get down to the ultimate truth. The way he tweaked my stimulated string of nerves had me trembling in anticipation. On the next stroke a mini-orgasm shook me but he didn't let off. He didn't even give me a break to ride it out. He continued his ferocious treatment of my clit and held me on the plateau with his fingers in me. The over stimulation bordered on painful and I writhed and moaned on my pillow until the next big one caught me.

"That's it, Hermione, fall apart for me," he mumbled from his position. I could hear his voice shaking in suppressed arousal. I knew he was watching me, how I gave in to another mother of all orgasms. I felt him crawl up over me while I panted against the tension in my bones. He kneeled over my chest and stuck his boner almost into my face. He didn't want me to take it in my mouth again as he was milking himself right before my face. At my bewildered look he explained breathing heavily and with his eyes closed: "I don't think you can take much more, Granger. But I have to come one more time. So, we'll do it like this."

I almost snorted. How considerate. I pushed him off and against his yelp pushed him on his back and positioned myself over him.

"Why don't you let me decide whether I can take more or not?" I growled. His eyes widened and he grabbed onto my hips but before he could say more I had inserted him into me and was moving up and down interspersed with the hip roll he seemed to have liked very much the last time.

He kept holding my hips for a few more moves but soon his eyes shuddered and he laid his head back, relaxing into my stimulating movements. His hands wandered up to my breasts and took a firm hold of them. He stroked his thumbs over the nipples to erect them and covered my globes firmly in his hands to feel them moving back and forth with my riding him. The moonlight still shone in my window casting my lover in an extra pale light and letting his shoulders look even broader and his hands even larger and his face peaceful in a way I had never seen him before. Draco Malfoy looked not peaceful, normally. I changed my position a few times; I leaned on his chest, feeling his huffs of breath directly in my face, and I leaned back against his raised legs, feeling the heated skin of his thighs rubbing on my slippery back, I supported myself on my hands over his shoulders and gave my hip free reign to fuck him six ways to Sunday to his groans of ecstasy.

I didn't come again. It was just too much. He had been right, after the last one, my body couldn't take another one. I just couldn't grasp it. But seeing him writhe under me, this handsome man, driven to total surrender to the throes of passion that I gave him and riding him to completion and feeling him ejaculate his warm come into me again was reward enough. He pulled me down to him when he came, held me still, couldn't take more stimulation himself. He groaned and panted like a tortured man but I knew those were good pains. He shuddered again like he was in a fever and holding me and pulling me down, he smooched my mouth like I was oxygen. I felt him inhaling through me, short laboured breaths; his eyes squeezed shut, his forehead furrowed and sweaty. The picture of a man surrendering to passion. And I did it. Yes.

When he came down, he rolled me to the side and actually pulled out. I kind of liked the feeling of him in me, he filled me up nicely, so I pulled a face, disappointed. But he said: "No more, Granger. My head will explode if we do it one more time, and my prick will fall off. You can write that on your banner: have shagged Draco Malfoy to exhaustion. It's an accomplishment, I can assure you."

I giggled. "Ah, well, I'll put that on my resume: Hermione Granger, student extraordinaire who can learn everything from books."

He had a hard time being so thoroughly exhausted but he managed to look incredulous again. "You learned this from books?"

I grinned: "Of course. Did you think, Ron taught me anything?"

"No," he mumbled. "Certainly not." He nuzzled into my neck and hair and sneaked his arms around my waist and his upper leg between mine. After a minute of sluggish thought, he added: "But I'd like to see the books you learned from."

"We'd have to go back to the Hogwarts library."

That actually startled him. "We had books that teach a woman how to fuck you to exhaustion in the library?"

I smirked. "If you knew were to look for them. Muggles are not to be underestimated."

Now he was upset. "These books were in the muggle section?"

I nodded. "Sex education 101. How to bring a guy and make your sexual experiences really rewarding," I quoted.

He groaned. "I could have had so much fun, if only I had thought to check in the muggle section."

I nodded again. "Want me to show you more of what I learned from that book?"

"No, Granger," he growled threateningly.

I continued undeterred. "Well, there was this one chapter about fellatio, you've already seen what I learned from that. Then there was another chapter about position and what particular areas they stimulate. I learned that women on top stimulates…"

He tried to extricate himself from our tangle of limbs: "If you don't shut up, I will have to go." I held tight to his waist. Hm, hot slippery skin. He tried to resist but I held tight.

"Granger, I will need to go at one point anyway." He chuckled while playfully trying to free his limbs which I grabbed whenever he had freed it, turning himself in my arms.

"No, you don't," I mumbled into his back. "You need to stay here, all night, all day, all week, always and forever."

With raised eyebrows, leaning back, he inquired amusedly: "And why is that?"

"Well, I might get certain …itches… that only certain parts of your anatomy can scratch." I frowned saying that. That was the main reason, wasn't it?

He laughed. "But I'm hungry. And I need to talk to my mother."

"Well, we still have the other half of your opulent lunch. That should satisfy you. And you can floo her from here."

He turned back over, so he would look into my blissfully relaxed face where I just closed my eyes in enjoyment. And after a decent french kiss, he asked into my mouth: "And when am I allowed to leave, Mistress?"

"Good question, my little dragon," I played his game. "I cannot answer that. At this moment, I want you here, I want you in my bed, in me, in my life. I want you to take my hand possessively in public, or my shoulders and to growl at contenders. And likewise I want to growl at other witches trying to score the Malfoy heir, which by the way I couldn't care less about."

"Hm," he mused. "I will need to lead a particular lifestyle as the head of Malfoy enterprises."

My eyes snapped open and I felt a growl building up in me. No. He was claiming me and the same would go the other way round. "As long as it doesn't involve other women."

He spun his tale further, smirking: "Well, in business certain negotiation tactics…"

Quick like lightning, I crawled over him like a lioness over her prey and bit, then soothed his collarbone and growled "No."

I wasn't quite certain what was happening here. In these instances, I acted very impulsively. The idea of Draco Malfoy and I together as a couple was still new and unusual. We had fought against each other in the war (hadn't we?), we had fought incessantly while in school together, he loathed my friends and I loathed his and their attitude toward me. He had loathed me and I had loathed him. And yet, in one instance of reaching out, our two magical fields had connected because we were of equal magical strength. After that, a certain respect for each other had snug in. He had taken half of my torture and Harry had saved his life and I had been glad for it. I had testified in his trial about his obvious doubts in Voldemort's dogma and he had come to work our magic with me. We had experienced amazing things with our magic and I had gotten to know him as a man in his own right, with his own (clever) thoughts and mind, not only as "Draco Malfoy, archenemy of Harry Potter and consorts". I still didn't know where our mutual magic began and where it stopped in this whole scenario and that made me a little wary; especially when I felt I was pushed to act against my better judgment as it happened when the compow broke his marriage bond. Or when I acted totally irrationally like when I lost my temper over jealousy or whenever he talked about infidelity and "other women". I wanted Draco Malfoy, my body wanted Draco Malfoy's body and my brain refused because it simply didn't make sense. I didn't trust him fully, I didn't know him fully and I couldn't imagine the difficulties of facing my friends and the public together with him. And yet, it felt so right to be with him and so blissful to connect with him physically and he wanted to be with me, to date me, potentially marry me which I didn't understand either. He had watched over me while I was unconscious in St. Mungo's, for Merlin's sake. There were moments when I was certain that he was mine and others when the doubts in my mind took the upper hand. But I didn't want to miss him in my life anymore, the feeling of rightness when he was around me, even if it came from the compow. And I wouldn't "share" him with anybody either. Kneeling over his body I moved my mouth up to his throat and pressed my teeth into the soft skin gently.

He chuckled and put his warm hands on my sides. "I think I like you being all dominant. I'll have to teach you properly."

I looked up at him and raised my eyebrows suggestively: "Are you into S&M?"

He was delighted at my interest and chuckled: "I'm not into pain, no, but who doesn't like being told what to do every once in a while? I think you would like it, too."

I pushed my knee into his crotch and made him groan in pleasure and (very little) pain.

"We'll see," I smirked.

"Yes, we will," he panted.

.

After a plentiful supper, devouring hungrily the rest of the lunch (pheasant in wine sauce, rib-roast with duchess potatoes, a gratin from parsnips, carrots and zucchini, a cheese platter and crème brulée for dessert, all served with some appropriate wine), they took their desert wine (a Canadian ice wine from the Niagara region) to Hermione's sofa. She lighted the fire in her fire place (with magic) and settled next to Draco, leaning back onto his chest. They had been too hungry before dinner to dress properly, so Hermione was wearing her dressing gown again, while Draco had chosen to quickly pull on the flannel shirt that Hermione had presented him earlier, with his boxers. The shirt was just about long enough to cover his private parts, leaving his long legs open to the view. Hermione put one hand on top of his closest thigh and stroked it thoughtlessly. There was a scar on the outside. She put a finger on it.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

He looked at her finger on his thigh and sighed: "Just a flying accident. I was only seven when I took my broom out the first time alone. Of course, it was too stubborn for me and upon landing, it landed traverse and splintered and a part went right through my leg. It was healed immediately by a healer when my mother took me to St. Mungo's but she told the healer to leave a little scar as a reminder." He looked into the crackling fire, lost in memories.

Hermione gave him another minute and then looked at him from under her lashes shyly. "May I see your other scar?" she asked.

Holding her eyes, he opened the top four buttons of the shirt and pulled the sides apart to expose the scar tissue on his chest. Hermione sat up and leaned over to get a proper view. She raised her hand and followed the line of the scar gently with her index and middle finger. Draco felt it tingling in his chest. She moved over to straddle him and he liked her weight and warmth on his lap. She bent over his chest and inspected it closely, holding her hair together with one hand. He looked down on the top of her head and found the view just right. He let his head sink back on the backrest of the couch and thought back to what she had done the last time she had been bent over him just like that, just a little lower, in fact.

"Malfoy, something's dislodging me from my place here," he heard a stern voice from the height of his chest.

He smirked. "It couldn't have anything to do with what's sitting on it?"

"It may," the voice came back. Then a face came into view, a face with delicate features and warm brown eyes and cupid-bowed rosy lips that smirked. He lifted a hand to touch her cheek and wondered for a moment how he ever deserved this woman. She kissed him softly on his mouth and he prolonged it by pulling her lips.

"Do you know that your eyes glow?" She smiled at him when they had separated.

He smiled back, folding his hand behind his head. "Well, I haven't felt this content in a long time." He paused and frowned. "Maybe never."

"You can't tell me you never had so much sex in one day before?" She questioned.

He smirked. "It's not about how much but about the quality and with whom."

She looked smug. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You do that," he affirmed. And then continued quietly: "Why don't you have a scar?"

She furrowed her forehead. "A scar?"

"Yes, you said you have been sectum sempra'd in the ministry the end of fifth year. Don't you have a scar from that?"

Her eyes became round. "Was that what you've been searching on my chest the very first time?"

He nodded. She enlightened him: "I don't have a scar from that incident because Dolohov was muted when he cursed me and I take it, it wasn't strong enough to slice me open. I had a lot of internal damage but fortunately, Madam Pomfrey has potions for everything."

Malfoy growled. "Dolohov did that to you?"

She nodded. "I recognized him from the posters that went around in third year when he escaped from Azkaban. As far as he was recognizable, he looked quite haggard." The blond man whose lap she was sitting on worked his jaw and snarled: "Yeah, they all do that after a while. Aunt Bella was supposed to be quite a lovely person when she was younger."

She put her hands on his jaw to relax it. "It's in the past. It will not happen to you because it is over. Let's wear our scars like war medals, alright?"

He tried to calm himself but only made it halfway. "You like blinking medals?"

She glanced at him calmly. "I can live with your scar, if that's what you mean. It is kind of cool, like an inverted Z for Zorro."

"Zorro?"

She smirked. "Yeah, he was a Spanish Nobleman and fought for the poor in California in the early 20th Century, as far as I know. He led a double life and was a cowardly nobleman by day and a black caped avenger by night. He was an excellent fencer and as his mark he left a Z scratched into the chest of his opponent."

"So, he was a hero of sorts. I told you women liked my scar. Now I know why," Malfoy smirked. She growled.

"You'll have to keep me entertained if you want to keep me from straying," he teased her.

Hermione pierced him with eyes narrowed to slits. "How about I won't give you a very painful and hideous wart right on your nose if you don't stray."

He chuckled. "Ouch. That's the problem with powerful witches, you always have to watch your back."

"Only when you try to get into other women's knickers," she growled in his face.

He chuckled again and pulled her in for a kiss. When she pulled back after a few minutes, he went further down her throat and stopped at one point.

"You've got a scar here. It's tiny but it's there. Almost like a …"

"Knifepoint, yeah. I've got a few scars from the chandelier as well all over my body." Hermione exhaled and looked down at her lover. The shock of remembrance was written all over his face. She shrugged. "As I said, medals of the war. You are more than welcome to find them all," she finished with a glint in her eyes.

His face relaxed and then he looked hungry again. If anybody had told Hermione six months ago that Draco Malfoy would look at her hungrily, she would have thought he'd converted to cannibalism. She would have never brought the words "Draco Malfoy" and "lusting for her" into one sentence. Six months ago, they didn't make sense.

On that day, though, Draco looking at her as if she held the key to his contentment made perfect sense. And for that reason she let herself be flipped over on her couch and her dressing gown ripped open and said man explore her with his hands and lips again. She had just about sense enough to block the fireplace against unwanted visitors before she succumbed with a blissful sigh to the sensations her lover reliably invoked in her.

All night long.

.

DMHG DMHG DMHG DMHG

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_A/N: Alright, my dears, I'll give you this next instalment as a good start into 2012. Happy New Year. _

_The shagging continues for a bit more in the next chapter but I have to hold that back for a little until I fixed the part after that. Or maybe I'll split the next chapter to get the shag fest finished. I'll see._

_My creativity is a bit low at the moment, I have my family around me and not a quiet minute, and I have to find a good way for them to find out what the compow does. I have an idea but it will take some work to do it properly, lots of times sitting and thinking over how to put every word. And I'm a little short on time the beginning of 2012. It's a bit difficult to have them figure out what they have as well. There are so many opposing forces pulling them in different directions that it becomes very confusing, even for the writer to keep the upper hand. Therefore, keep letting me know if you don't understand. I think I got it straight in this chapter and I'm starting to over-edit again, so I have to put it out. _

_Bear with me, dear readers, and Happy New Year 2012_


	25. Union

_All around thanks for reviews to: the Anonymous reviewer, articcat621, scv914, VampireQueenBrittany (for two chapters, yeah), and yeah, MrsMoony86 is back and entirely caught up (seven reviews must be some kind of a record and she is on the right track with the compow, although peace and light is a tall order. It'll be more specific but nothing with the tracking.)_

_I appreciate all your support. Unfortunately, I kind of manoeuvred myself into a corner a bit. I needed to think a bit about how to get back on track. I know where it's supposed to end but how to get there… . That's why it took so long to this update and it will continue this way because I have this chapter under control now but not the next yet. Luckily, my husband took the kids skiing this weekend and I have a weekend off. Woo, story, here I come._

_And believe it or not, my beginning of the year vacation turned out to be a trip from hell because my entire family had their passports stolen (lesson learned: never keep them all in one place or really locked up) and we had a hell of a lot to do to get an upper hand of the situation again. That tends to dampen creativity somewhat. It's not as bad as it sounds and we applied for all the new paperwork by now. With the worst of that out of the way, I can feel the story niggling on my brain again, though, and I can continue._

_Continuing with the lemon stuff for a little more. Be Warned. EXPLICIT MATURE CONTENT. (just in case you haven't figured it out yet)_

**Chapter 18 part 5: Union**

**.**

**Draco's POV:**

I woke up the next morning because there was a warm body pressed against mine. That was strange. I never stayed overnight with the women I slept with. And then I noticed that not only was I unusually warm, but there was a perk bum pressed against my loin and it fit very well. As my brain slowly started working, I realized that my nose was buried in a bush of hair that smelled of roses and one of my hands rested on a taut and warm stomach. My other hand rested on a vibrating body over my head, the hair a little courser than the springy hair around my nose.

I moved my head out of the hair bush to see what my one hand was resting on and discovered Crookshanks perched over our two heads, rolled up on the pillow. He seemed to feel quite comfortable with my hand on his bum. I moved my hand away but the purring continued. I focused my attention on my other hand moving upwards on the soft skin of a taut front until it landed on a perk swell of a breast_. _When I cupped my hand around it, the well-fitting bottom rubbed itself against my morning erection which was a most pleasurable sensation.

How could she fit so well, I wondered? I'd never taken a woman to bed who hit all my erogenous zones just because her body parts were aligned with them. The one girl I wouldn't have been caught dead with in all my school years fit me like a thorn on a rose. Her delicious bottom rubbed my erection, her breast fit just in my hand, her lips on mine matched or on my ear shell, her nose on my neck, her back to my front rubbed my chest, her teeth and tongue on my nipples, her hands fit just comfortably around and her pussy, Merlin, fit like a satin glove over my shaft. Even her internal ripples were like a massage on my prick. Her skin tasted just the right mix of sweet and salty, her smell of roses seduced my nose and her moans were just the right vibrations to resonate in me and carry me even higher. Her hands seemed to touch, grip, knead, pull, scrape, or hold the right spots at the right moment. She must have started to do something to her face recently because her eyes were a bit accentuated and shone particularly in a way I had never seen before, when she climaxed. How her skin flushed and heated, how she bent and arched and writhed in abundance when I brought her up was priceless. I'd never seen anything so honest and so pure and I felt exhilarated that I was the one to give her that pleasure. I even liked her long limps, especially wrapped around me. And her skin was incredibly soft. This was Hermione Granger, for Merlin's sake, and she fit me like she was made for me.

Normally, I liked my women voluptuous. I liked large tits and round hips and arse and well-formed legs and feet. Granger was not voluptuous. She was on the slim side with long arms and long, well-formed legs. But she had a slim waist that made her hips look wider than they were. Her stomach was smooth and firm and so flat that it made her breasts stick out more than they rightfully deserved due to their size. And they were not only perfect in shape, but they actually had very responsive nipples that became hard if I just breathed on them. If only she wouldn't always hide it under voluminous jumpers. I needed to put her in some more form fitting clothes that would show off her figure more suitably. My hand on her arse reminded me that it was smooth and firm and round and I couldn't wait to see it blooming another time. Her back was long and muscular and invited hands to stroke over and teeth to bite into it. And on the risk of sounding like I'm gushing, the way she slung and wrapped her long legs around me and pulled me in, to never let me go, well, there is not much finer than that.

Just now said back was pushing itself firmer into my chest, rubbing shoulder blades over my nipples and a bottom again over my erection. When I exhaled on her ear shell, she shivered and I started to suspect that she was awake and toying with me. I licked over her ear and took her ear lobe between my lips to suck and put some pressure on my hand over her breast. She moaned in response and rubbed her behind intentionally over my upstanding shaft. I pulled myself a little further up, so I had more leverage and could whisper in her ear: "Morning, Granger."

She hmm'd. "Good Morning, Draco."

I chuckled: "We'll see how good the morning will be," and pushed my (proud) member down her back cleft and between her legs. I rubbed it back and forth over her swollen lips (we had a few go's the day before and well into the night) and savoured the warmth of her nether region. After a few rubs, she lifted her upper leg to give me more room to manoeuvre and moved with me. I heard a moan escape me when I felt my prick slide smoothly. I lifted myself up on an elbow to get a better angle and slipped it in. She bent herself into a 'C', her upper leg backward over my legs, her bum towards me, her hands reaching backward to my face and into my hair.

I started thrusting into her, my one hand squeezing her breast, my other hand in her hair. I alternately kissed and licked and sucked on her hand that was on my face. With every stroke I hit her front wall and after a few strokes I felt her starting to shiver.

And again, this fit. I played her body like an instrument: when I played the right keys, her body hummed and sang. Like I played the piano. That wasn't entirely unusual, though. I played almost every woman's body. Granger's was perhaps extra sensitive, but not different. Different was that she played me just as much. My body reacted to her little cues like it was made to do just that like a well-tuned instrument. You hit a key and the tone comes whether it wants to or not. I suspected this was the reason that I lost control so easily when I was with Granger. She kissed and I felt dizzy for desire. She moaned and my body hummed. She screamed my name in passion and I climaxed. Like fishing in an aquarium. It was a bit frightening, this feeling of losing control, but liberating as well. My body was telling me 'Just let go, for fuck's sake, stop manipulating' and I did. And being in her was heaven, she had me so well. I'd never been rubbed in all the right places at the same time before. It becomes difficult to breathe if all your nerve activity concentrates on your 15 cm appendix. When you come like that, it overwhelms you, and your teeth hurt, for Merlin's sake.

"Oooh," Granger moaned. Her sounds went right through to where it counted and I picked up speed. I felt my balls constricting because my rubbing over her inner wall stimulated my head as well as her.

"Oooh, yes, that's it, that's the right spot, yes, yes," she moaned. Oh, Merlin, I wasn't going to make it. This woman drove me insane. I groaned for relief of the tension. I already felt it coming. Where was my discipline? I was a Malfoy, for fuck's sake. I had to be able to control myself. But my body denied it.

"Yes, Draco, oh, yes, yes, right there, faster, harder, please, please, yes, yes, YES, oh my, oh, YES, ha, haaaaaaaaa."

It was no use. It was official, I was pussy-whipped; this woman had me by the balls. She exploded around me and I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't hold back; the way she rippled and clenched around me, I exploded with her. I couldn't breathe, it hurt my teeth, I felt the crown of my hair constrict, and I bit her shoulder (gently) just to do something that I could control. I heard myself make noises in ecstasy that I wasn't quite sure were actually human. More like animals in a rut.

When my elbow gave out, I collapsed onto her shoulder and pushed her on her stomach. I nuzzled my face in her hair and just enjoyed the feeling of her heated skin on mine. And of my prick in her hot convulsing wetness. Oh, Gawds, I was running out of superlatives to express how perfect this felt.

I knew I couldn't stay there for long, I would crush her. My frame was considerably larger and heavier than hers. But before I moved on my back, I couldn't refrain myself from saying: "Dammit, Granger. If you keep this up, we'll never be able to leave the bed."

I could feel her laughter by the shaking of her shoulders before I heard anything. I rolled over on my back and pulled her with me. She turned in my arms to be able to face me for the first time this morning and she blew me away with the way she was full-out laughing.

I'd never seen Granger laugh like that. When we had encounters at school, naturally she'd scowled or sneered and said something biting. Even in our good times her most benign facial expression had been concern. Maybe a few smiles but never a full-out laugh. There had been no occasion for that. I was sure, Potter and Weasley and her little Gryffindor friends had seen her numerous times laughing, but for me it was a first. Her eyes screwed up, her cheeks flushed (which reminded me pleasurably of other occasions when her cheeks were flushed) and she showed two rows of perfect teeth behind her pink lips. Her laughter was a roll of little laughters, no snorts, no grunts, a cadence of happy little sounds like a wave rolling in. It took me with it, filled me up and carried me safely to shore. Gawds, Malfoy, do you want to throw up over your own comment? Is this what love is like? Sods, all of us who are in love.

With the way the feeling clenched in my chest, I couldn't tell her that I liked watching her laugh, so I did what I always do, I sniped.

"Calm down, Granger, have a little composure." Which drove her right away into another bout of laughter. I held her shoulders above me until she calmed slowly.

"That, Malfoy, was priceless," she wheezed, still short of breath.

"Well, it's true," I carped. "I'm starving and you squeeze me between your legs."

She chuckled again but kept a grip this time. "I wouldn't have squeezed if you hadn't put your pecker between them. And you've got some nerve. On our first morning together, I might have wanted to use the loo or brush my teeth before I start anew between the sheets. I may have morning breath."

I narrowed my eyes. "Well, lucky me, but from my position I wouldn't have been able to tell. And I didn't hear you complaining about the positioning of my pecker." She blushed a little. "Yeah, well, …" she started.

"Deal with it, Granger, you are stuck with me. There is no turning back. You have me, balls, pecker and all, so you better get used to me being here in the morning." I smiled grimly. At first she was flustered, hearing my words. But then, there was a glint in her eyes. She quickly moved her hand and grabbed my sack. It stirred my just flaccid shaft into action again and I groaned. Gah, this woman was dangerous: she knew she held power and she was not afraid to wield it.

"Balls and all?" she asked in a sweet voice.

"Balls and all," I confirmed with a pressed voice. "Granger…"

"What will your friends say?"

I coughed. "Hermione, you need to let go."

"Eh?" she made.

"They'd think, it's hilarious. Please, let go," I whimpered. She did. I breathed in relief, then grabbed her hand and pushed her on her back, leaning over her. "Never do that again" I growled in her face.

She grinned provocatively. "Why ever not, Malfoy? You seemed to enjoy being squeezed." If I had been a dragon, I would have breathed fire in this moment. But Granger wrapped her legs around my back and threw her head back when my reinvigorated tip touched her lower lips and moaned. I was helpless. When she looked like she was in throes of passion, I just couldn't resist, I felt aroused. And arousal doesn't go well with anger. One of them has to give way. When she undulated against my tip and moved her ever so flexible feet up to my shoulders, it became quickly clear who had the upper hand.

"Alright, alright, a truce," I groaned. "You said you would feed me, Granger."

"Aww." She puckered her lips in disappointment. "Aw, well, I have to see what I can find."

That didn't sound very promising. To somebody who was used to being served his stomach's desire every morning, that is. She unwrapped her legs from around me and started to push out from under me, when I stopped her: "Wait," I said. "I have an idea. Make yourself decent." She pulled a t-shirt over her head and a bed cloth over herself and looked at me expectantly.

I called: "Deezy" and with a bang my personal house elf apparated into Hermione Granger's apartment.

"Master Draco, where you been, your mother be very worried …." Deezy stopped herself, seeing Granger behind my shoulder, our state of undress and a woman's bedroom. "Oh" she said and then remained silent.

I smiled at her. "Please inform my mother that I was at St. Mungo's the last three days and here last night. I thought, Blaise and Pansy would have told her. I'll come back to the Manor later today for a change of clothes. What we need now is a hearty breakfast, Deezy. Can you bring it here?"

Deezy looked a little insulted. "Of course, Master Draco. I be right back."

Five minutes later and we were sitting amongst a breakfast, supported on several floating trays, of fresh fruit with whipped cream and warm bread rolls, butter and jam, a cheese selection and cold cut, bacon and eggs, coffee, orange juice and tea.

Granger prepared a bread roll with butter and jam and then leaned back into a pillow against her headboard with a mug of coffee in her other hand. She smiled happily. I felt the air relaxing around us.

"Am I going to be treated to a breakfast like this every morning you'll stay here? Because if that is the case, I cannot guarantee that I'll work that off entirely. Something will remain on my hips eventually." Then she bit in her bread roll with a gusto that made the jam squeeze out on the other end. I caught it with my finger before it dripped on her bed sheet and put it in my mouth.

"Hey, that's my jam," she protested.

"Would you rather it had landed on your bed?" I jeered.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course not, but you were supposed to put it in my mouth." I was stunned for a second. There were yet resources to be discovered in Hermione Granger. She was a bottomless pit of surprises. Kinky ones, too. Oh Boy.

I smirked. "It's still on my tongue if you really want it."

She smirked back. "Absolutely. Tongue it over."

I crawled over to her and straddled her lap. "Well, if you want it you have to take it from my tongue." She put her bread roll delicately down on a plate on a tray next to her and her coffee mug on another tray and took my head in both her hands and pulled it toward her.

"Well, then, give it to me," she challenged. I opened my mouth a bit and pushed my tongue out to my lips but no further. She put her lips on mine and sucked my tongue into her mouth where she cleaned it with her tongue. If she had put her tongue and lips on my prick it couldn't have been more stimulating. I felt the hair on my neck curl up (and other body parts) and on a particularly ticklish stroke of her tongue, I whimpered. Hearing this, she pulled back and grinned at me.

"Hm, this tongue is all clean. There's nothing more to do for me." And with that she leaned back and was about to pick up her coffee mug again, when I quickly dipped into the whipped cream and put it on my tongue again. "Try some cream," I enticed her, speaking around my curled up tongue.

She laughed and repeated her tonguing game from before. However, this time when she had cleaned my tongue, she dipped into the cream herself again and smeared some whipped cream on my lips and tongue. I licked her finger clean and slurped on her fingertip. She did it again and while transferring whipped cream from the bowl to my tongue this time, she held my gaze and when she had almost gotten it to my mouth she tilted her finger and dropped the cream from it. "Ooops," she said.

We didn't follow its way down. I looked into her laughing brown eyes and wondered how by Slytherin's moaning mistress I had deserved a second chance at heaven on earth like this. I didn't need to look down to know where the cream had landed. I could feel it. And I felt sweat against my brow and neck breaking out when I thought about how she would lick that particular dollop of cream off and when I imagined how that would look from my point of view.

"Granger," I growled quietly. "Don't you dare lick that off. I'll explode imagining it before you even get your lips on that particular body part of mine."

"Well, Malfoy," she smirked. I was definitely rubbing off on her. "I admit I am a little disappointed. I would have thought you have more discipline than that. How did you ever get your good grades in school if you don't have the discipline to go the extra length for it?"

I shuddered and groaned. "Oh, Gawds, Granger, have mercy on me."

She giggled. "Do my ears deceive me? Are you begging for mercy? You, Draco Malfoy?"

"Get on with it, Granger, will you? I can't hold my imagination much longer in check."

She laughed again and then I saw her head disappear from my view when she scooted lower, sliding her body right through my legs framing her until her face was approximately level with my groin. I couldn't watch, I thought. When I felt her tongue on the sensitive skin of the head of my cock, I thought, the least I could do was not to watch. But I am a Slytherin and I lie even to myself. Of course I looked down and when I saw her luxuriously licking off the whipped cream from my by now fully erect prick, I couldn't hold my shudder and the blood surging in my balls. The blood may even have shot in my face because of the image. It is hard to believe, I know, because I've participated in (mixed) orgies, had sex with several women at once and have fucked and been fucked (not by males) in every conceivable way. I am very confident in my sexual prowess and you'd think I'd be hard-assed when it came to sexual games and practices, anything sexual at all. But looking at Granger's little pink tongue licking over my cock had the same quality as your own private little fantasy that always gets you off: like you come into the library to an at first sight unattractive librarian who turns out to hide a hot body under her frumpy clothes and has beautifully gleaming eyes without her horn-rimmed glasses and wonderful hair falling around her shoulders when she opens her pulled-back up-do; who corners you in a dark corner when all the other customers have gone and she has locked the door and whose unadorned mouth turns out to be very talented; the little fantasy where you have hot sweaty sex with the librarian against the bookshelves and on the newspaper tables and over her reception desk. It was totally unexpected. And all the more arousing for it.

I had never lusted after Granger while we were at school. If you are not into getting off over a teacher punishing you with her screeching, she's just not the type. Especially since she always hid her assets under practical clothes and our uniforms and never shortened her school skirts like the other girls. There were plenty explicitly willing females while I was at school, there was no need to even think about her. So I never had any sexual fantasies about Granger. Sex to me was a power instrument and to release tension at best. I fucked because I wanted to dominate or to relax or both. And even though Granger antagonized me to no end and she was sided with Potter from very early on and it would have been natural to fantasize about dominating her for bothering me, I never did. In my mind, I never degraded her to a sex object. She did get under my skin but on a totally different, more aggravating level. Only now I learned that we connected on the physical level as well, it thrilled me when I smelled, heard, saw, tasted, felt her arousal. But it could never be as the power game that I had played with the other girls that I'd had. Lay and be laid, lay and leave, be reeled in and seduced and let them hang. No matter how we had played it, it had always ended with me leaving. Never once had I thought about relaxing right there next to the witch I had just fucked and enjoy our mutual satisfaction, be lulled into sleep, caressing her body into mine and breathing in our mixed scents. When I'd fallen asleep, then because we had fucked to exhaustion and I needed to replenish my energies and then, I had left as soon as I was done. Not once had I thought about waking up together the next morning and have breakfast together or anything romantic like that. Well, not until the previous night.

And knowing now how she fit me, how she responded to me and how she pushed my buttons to arouse me had me wring in anticipation and reminiscing. My hips wanted to move but I didn't want to shove right in her face. It became difficult to resist though.

"Granger," I whimpered, more sweat breaking out on my forehead and all body parts that usually break out in sweat. She looked up, saw me trembling and realized that I held myself together by a thin thread. She did the quickest practical thing (that's my Granger) which was to take it into her mouth again and suck two, three times. She stroked her tongue once over the tip and I trembled, I shook, I fell apart whimpering and for the first time in my life, likely due to our continuous activity since yesterday midday, I climaxed without come. When she noticed, she slithered out between my legs and came up again to a sitting position and took me in her arms while I was still shaking. I buried my face in the crook of her neck and she embraced me as if she could take the whole of me inside her body. And I felt whole. I felt also raw and exposed, vulnerable and shaken to the core. I was sitting on her bed, held by a woman who didn't like exposing her naked body (what a shame) and had not taken the t-shirt off again; I was naked amongst breakfast trays with quickly cooling coffee and tea (we'd forgotten the stasis charm) and I had just experienced a climax that had tapped and shaken my innermost core without the satisfying release. And with the way she held me, I felt complete. And sheltered. Not in the naive way a mother makes everything alright with her soothing but in a way that leaves no doubts and no open questions. In a way that life tells you, this is it; as of this moment, you've arrived, you've reached your goal, you are where you are supposed to be. Everything else is secondary.

And I knew that I wanted her. I wanted her to hold me like this whenever I needed it. I wanted to delve into her immense magical power and welcome her to mine and feel the exciting prickle of it mixing with mine and be sheltered and balanced. I wanted her to lean on me and rely on me the same way. I wanted to be in her and protectively around her at the same time. Impaling and embracing her at the same time came closest to the feeling I was trying to clarify to myself.

It had nothing to do with desire, although I couldn't deny that wholesome aspect. Her soft skin gliding over mine, her inner muscles clamping down on my prick, her lips holding mine and her tongue stroking induced feelings that left me hot and cold. But every time I was with her, images of warmth and softness, of comfort and wholeness pushed themselves into my mind and I couldn't deny those either. I felt secure with her, even in my vulnerable state. She would lash out at me if I hurt her but Granger would never wilfully, maliciously take advantage of me, the way every good Slytherin woman would have done in a blink, or stab me when I was down. I could feel it in the way my magic relaxed around her when it used to be always on high alert. And although I grew up with the notion that you could never fully trust your woman for that reason, or your friends, even your family, (maybe except for your mother, maybe) it felt good to imagine that with this woman I didn't need to be constantly aware; that with her I could sit back every day and let my feet dangle without having to watch who could potentially bite them. And I believe in that moment, life literally hit me with a sign that I was where I needed to be. But I was too shaken to comment on it.

"No more games," Hermione said. "You are exhausted. You need to eat. And rest. And sleep."

She levitated all the trays off the bed with a wave of her hand and deposited me on the pillow she had formerly leaned against, covered me with a blanket up to my chest and filled me a plate with bacon and eggs from a floating tray and tried to push it in my hands. When she found that my hands were still shaking, she took the plate back and fed me until the plate was finished.

With a satisfying amount of food in my stomach, my eyes fluttered shut and I slept for a bit. When I awoke the sun was high and Granger was sitting next to me on the bed, bent over a book, flying through the pages. She was nibbling on a bread roll, tearing little pieces off and putting them delicately in her mouth. When I stirred, she looked at me and her eyes alighted.

"Hey," she said, leaning over as if she was about to kiss the corner of my mouth. Unfortunately, she stopped herself mid-way. "Feeling better?"

I wanted her kiss. Her lips felt marvellous on mine but I didn't know why she stopped herself. It made me uncertain. I replied: "I haven't felt bad."

She was surprised. "You shook like you were in a nervous breakdown."

I smirked weakly. "Doesn't mean it felt bad."

She lifted her eyebrows in doubt and I went on: "Why didn't you kiss me if it looked like a nervous breakdown?"

She smiled. "I'm not convinced that the way you are handling nervous breakdowns is quite the correct one."

I felt the corners of my mouth pulling up into a smile. I'd be damned if I lost the famous Malfoy smirk and smiled like a goof from now on. I poured myself a tea, fixed it with a spot of milk and took a sip to mask my facial gestures.

"I see you are already eating again," I said to distract from my confusion.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, well, I was finally able to finish my jam roll when you fell asleep but since it's been two hours and it's almost lunch time, I was hungry again. Besides, I overthought my earlier statement: with all the aggravation I experience with you I don't need to be worried that anything will show too quickly on my body. Even with all the opulent meals."

I smirked: "More's the pity. Usually, I like my women more voluptuous, with an hourglass figure."

She shrugged: "Just wait a few pregnancies. Women usually expand with the pregnancy hormones. Boobs will be bigger, hips wider, it'll be close enough to an hourglass."

I had just taken a sip and almost spit out my tea. When I had managed to swallow without choking, I asked through clenched teeth: "Erm, Granger, you are using contraceptives, right?"

She shrugged again. "Too late now, anyway, right? And didn't you say you have your ways to prevent a woman from becoming pregnant with your sperm?"

"Yeah, well, that requires a certain spell some time before the act." There it was again, this forsaken lack of control when it came to her. And I knew I stared. Wide-eyed, gaping mouth, no words coming. Another first for me. Forget what I said earlier about Malfoy's not gaping open-mouthed. I was getting used to the idea of having our kind of fulfilling pleasures every day with Granger, but married and pregnant right away? She chuckled.

"Oh, and you forgot with me? Relax, Draco. I am on the potion. I'm only nineteen; I've been in a war. I don't want to go into motherhood right away." I exhaled and put away my tea before it showed the shaking of my hands. "I'm surprised, though, Draco. Weren't you looking for a bride who can make you little Malfoys right away?" she continued.

I sagged in relief into the back of her bed and took a soft curl of her hair. I was going to love this hair eventually, I just knew it. It was strong and soft at the same time. Just like Granger herself. "I was meant to marry a pureblooded trophy wife as quickly as possible to make an heir to continue the dynasty. With you being none, all bets are off." It was very liberating again, actually, not to have to conform to expectations. I pulled the curl and watched it spring back. I looked up just I time to see her face fall. "Granger, you would not be a trophy wife, alright?"

"I most certainly would not," she replied and looked away but I could hear that she was piqued.

"You most certainly would not, that's right." Seeing her pull a face, I knew it was not enough. She must have overthought things while I was out for two hours. But what she needed to hear and why she needed to hear it, I didn't know. She was Hermione Granger, for Merlin's sake, she normally let nobody, well, perhaps Harry Potter, tell her who or what she was. She had fought a war with unparalleled magic and survival instinct. How could she even think she would fall in the same category as the pureblooded damsels I had been dating to find a woman to make an heir with?

Finally, I pulled her into my arms and sat her on my lap. It immediately felt good to have her thus close. And I was a Malfoy; I took what I liked best. Taking a handful of her thick locks in one hand and her cheek in the other, I said: "You know that you are in your own league, don't you?"

That didn't seem to have the desired effect of cheering her up. She still looked crestfallen. I was at a loss what to do and I couldn't hide that in my voice. I snarled.

"What's your problem, Granger?"

She moved her face out of my hand and looked over to the window. I couldn't be certain but I thought I saw her eyes glistening and her lower lip quiver. What was wrong for fuck's sake? Did she want to marry right away? Didn't she say that she didn't want that, children and marriage? I felt confused again and that is not a good feeling, I can assure you.

"Look, Granger. If it's important to you to be married to me, we can set a date right now. I am not afraid of marriage. I was all set to do it anyway, resigning myself to the fact that I would live with one woman for all my life whether I loved her or not. I've been growing up knowing that I would have to marry as soon as I finished school. But it seems a foreign concept to you and I'd rather you found a liking to the idea of being with me for the long haul. That's why I wanted to date you first, alright? Because besides working together and shagging our brains out, which admittedly is a first class way of dating, we haven't spent that much time together doing things we both like."

"How can you want to date me, not to mention marry me, when all you know about me is that I read lots of books, am a teacher's pet and boss the men in my life around?" she asked in a clogged up voice.

I groaned. What was it with women needing constant approval? "Didn't I just say that I want to date you as a way to get to know the other side of you? The one that shags my brains out and enjoys good food and likes wine and is incredibly educated and matches my magic tit for tat?"

"You were engaged to Astoria for about a month and called her "Tori" and you know me for seven years and worked closely with me for five months and still call me Granger," she accused vehemently to the window. Ah, now we were getting somewhere. My lack of endearments for her bothered her and the fact that we weren't exactly cuddly-cosy together. I knew I was supposed to call her "Hermione" now. I had managed a few times so far, but it wasn't easy to do. "Hermione" was such a stiff name and I had called her "Granger" ever since I'd known her. First as a steadfast and smart enemy, as the brain behind Potter, later as a trusted equal. She had gained my respect and more while being called "Granger". If I called her some meek endearment now, I felt I would belittle her strength. And I relied on her strength for many things. But how to tell her that?

"What would you want me to call you now?" I frowned. She shrugged.

"Baby?"

She pulled a face.

"Honey?" She deepened her grimace.

"Mione? Because Hermione is a mouthful."

"Gods, no." She shook her head.

"Well, let me know when you think of an endearment that you like. And I will do my best to integrate it into my daily vocabulary," I said with raised eyebrows.

"But," here I narrowed my eyes to my most sinister Malfoy look, "be sure to incorporate all your strength, your magical powers, your mastery of the compow, your benevolence and the way we mix explosively in the bedroom into it. Otherwise it won't reflect who you are properly, the way "Granger" does for me, and it will only belittle you. Like endearments often do."

Her head snapped around back to me. I could see it in the way the brown took on a golden glow how understanding dawned in her eyes. Like the sun setting over freshly ploughed soil. There was a certain richness to it. You could feel the power of the earth in the golden glow. It was eerie.

"And I've known Astoria all her life. I started calling her Tori when I was about four years old and she was two," I added.

And then Granger, hm, Hermione snogged me to the point that I felt my toe nails curl (I know, it's very girlish but it was true) and my head went all woozy. Thoughts swirled in my head, images of her sitting at a table across from me in a restaurant with white decked tables, dressed to the nines, her hair up-done, her delicate features glowing in the candle light, a wine glass in her hand, toasting me. I would make our dates the best time in her life. She certainly deserved that. Without her, I would be a living corpse without soul. I would have continued on my way in Voldemort's service and I would have destroyed myself in the process. I might have taken part of her pain when she was tortured but that was nothing against the way she had been inexplicably there whenever I needed a lifeline. I needed to value her for that. I was going to spoil her senseless to show her what life with me was going to be like. In a sneaky, Slytherin way. I knew better than to simply throw money at her and I knew that vaults of money did not impress her much, but she would accept something expensive if given with consideration. If I took her out to the most expensive restaurant in London, heck, Paris, she would feel like I tried to intimidate her and balk. But if I told her I wanted to have her taste my favourite wine in my favourite restaurant, her curiosity would take her through even if the setting was overwhelmingly formal. And of course, I would dress her for the occasion. And not show her the price. Some people might consider this manipulation but was it manipulation if I wanted to show a deserving woman the (expensive) beauties in life and I had the money to pay for it?

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that it took me a few seconds to realize that she had stopped kissing and was eyeing my face amusedly when I opened my eyes.

"Did I kiss you into oblivion?" she grinned. All her self-doubts seemed to be forgotten. Bless women and their versatile brains.

"Somewhat," I hedged.

"Where were you?" she asked curiously.

"Taking you out to my favourite restaurant," I explained.

She grinned again. "Which one is that? The most expensive one in London? The one where you have to make reservations through the Queen?"

I grinned with her. Gosh, it was so good to be right. She was rightfully suspicious, given my background. "No, actually, that's not my favourite."

Her face fell a bit. "But you've been there?"

I shrugged. I would have never thought it possible up until that point, that I ever felt unsure how to handle the issue that I had money with a woman I wanted. "My father gets in all kind of places and naturally he takes his family with him. Well, not always, but often enough."

She frowned; most likely thinking along the same lines as I had a few minutes ago, about what it would mean to be with me. This time, I was one step ahead of her. But this time it felt like manipulation to me all of a sudden and I wanted to be honest with her. Because her eyes would glow less and her magic became all scratchy if I wasn't.

"Would you come with me if I told you, it was my favourite restaurant and I wanted to enjoy my favourite dish with you?"

She searched my eyes and hopefully saw my good intentions in there. After a few moments, she nodded. "If that was the main reason, I would."

"Independent of the price?" I clarified a little nervously.

She smiled. "I couldn't have you live in substandard compared to your usual life just because I wouldn't want to spend the money to go there myself, now, can I?"

I exhaled. Yes. I kissed her. "Excellent, Granger. I was worried for a moment that I would have to live on gruel from now on because you couldn't afford more than that. And you wouldn't let me pay for your meals."

She swatted me on the chest. "You know that I don't live on gruel. And since when would you eat what I eat?"

I frowned. "Well, I was concerned that you would only let me take you out to places you considered appropriate and that they only served gruel."

She snickered. "Poor Draco. Afraid of a new lifestyle. Would I let you suffer like that?"

I looked at her pointedly. "From what I heard, you put Potter and the Weasel through their paces when supervising their homework and schoolwork. I consider you not above trying that with me. But I'll have you know that you will not order me around like your two twats."

She looked away again. I didn't like that at all. It felt like a shutter closing, every time she did that. "I was quite a bossy swot, wasn't I?" she amended quietly.

"Yes, well…," I admitted reluctantly. She had been. But it would hurt her, if I pointed it out. And I didn't want to see her hurt. All the warmth diminished in her eyes when she was hurt. When she didn't turn back to me, I took her face and pulled it gently back to me. "And now, you are my bossy swot. Just don't boss me around to much, alright? I become very bitchy if I get too much bossing."

She smiled coyly. "Okay, I'll try. Just tell me when it gets too much, alright?"

I nodded. "Alright. Now you only need to live with my snobbish Malfoyish way."

She snickered. "I already figured out when you are that way. I can deal with it."

It took a second to sink in. What? "I beg your pardon?"

Granger beamed at me. "I figured out that you become snarky and lordly when you feel uncomfortable with something. And it can even be something nice. It likely makes you feel like you owe something and you try to shock people into letting off, don't you?"

"Do I?" I didn't quite have my wits back for a sharp reply. I hadn't even been aware that I do that. I was stunned into speechlessness.

She nodded. "Once I figured out the pattern, it was quite obvious how you act and react. I mean, you even snarled at me when I sucked you off. And it was obvious that not the act itself was uncomfortable to you, so it must have been the fact that I did it."

Too right, it had been. I had been disoriented, waking up in a foreign bed after a short much needed nap, and finding Hermione Granger with my cock in her mouth bent over me. And even though we had crossed the border to intimacy before that (several times and with increasing pleasure), at first it had been a shock. It had taken a few of her masterful sucks with vibration and tongue plays to drive the point home that it was quite enjoyable to have her do that.

"When did you figure that out?" I asked hoarsely, still stunned.

"Pretty much then." She looked a little nervous.

"Between sucking me off, and having me drive you to orgasm and riding me to exhaustion you figured out that I feel uncomfortable with the situation when I snarl?" I blurted out forcefully. Now she looked really nervous, unsure of my reaction, but she nodded again none the less.

I let go of her face, set her down on her bed and made to move around her, off the bed. Trying to avoid my movement, she fell backward on her bum and looked after me as I scooted of the bed. As I stood in my naked glory in the middle of her bedroom, trying to remember where I left my clothes (and when I had been dressed the last time), she asked in a small voice: "What's wrong? Where are you going?"

"I'm going home. Well, trying to, if I can find my clothes."

"In the foyer. I ripped them off you yesterday, remember? Why are you going home? What did I do?" She sounded a little panicked. I looked back on the bed where she sat in her t-shirt, her hair a little dishevelled.

I wanted this woman. I really did. She filled holes and gaps and corners in me that I didn't even know existed until she started filling them up. And now I couldn't live with these empty spaces anymore. So, I needed her and I wanted her. But could I see my life with her like you do when you sketch your married life with your wife? Not really. Because Granger, although she fit me perfectly in all important aspects in life, didn't fit in the life I was brought up to live, residing in the Manor, lording over the Malfoy estates, meddling in politics to the advantage of our family and promenading my (pureblood) wife and children in public. I was certain that she could easily learn to be the Lady of the Manor. There was nothing that she couldn't learn but would she feel comfortable with it? I would find out. I wanted to find out. I did know that life with Granger would be much more exciting and fulfilling that simply lording over the estates and showing of my noble family. The magic that I worked with her would make sure of that. The raptures that we experienced together would keep us satisfied for years to come. The way she got me and captured me promised peace of mind. But everything else was a blank. I had no idea how we would be together. Would we be able to find a common ground to walk every day or would we rip each other's head of every chance we would get? She seemed to understand me much more than I expected, now, given the chances. Much better than I ever expected to be understood, actually. Would that continue? I wanted to find out.

I made a decision in that moment that I would stop playing my Slytherin games with her because it shook her every time I did that. At least, until I had earned her trust, I would lay off. And therefore, I couldn't carry it through what I had in mind when I got up, which had been, to leave and come back with my toothbrush after a while, if it meant to potentially hurt or frighten her. I had to tell her. I went back over to the bed and crawled back on until I was face to face with her.

"I'm going home to grab my essentials, like my toothbrush and Gwenny and then I am going to move in with you. Because you, Granger, figured me out. And I cannot risk that you go parading with your knowledge and expose me to the world. So, I will have to watch you every minute of every day to make sure that you don't blab about what you know about me. And I can only do that when I live with you full time. If we do some pleasurable things to fill my time, I wouldn't mind that. Because you know, I don't have to work."

Her eyes became wide as dinner plates. "You want to move in with me? Here?"

I barked: "It'll do for now until we can find a bigger place. You could also move into the Manor with me but I can understand if you don't want to live there. It's quite large and cold. And it holds bad memories for you and such. Your apartment is much warmer and cosier. But it doesn't matter where we live as long as I can be by your side. To watch you, of course." She wouldn't want to live in the Manor, would she? After what Bellatrix did to her in the Drawing room? We would figure that out. We were two extremely smart people, we would find a solution. Perhaps an unconventional solution but a solution that would fit us both. As long as she stayed with me. That was the most important part. It's hard to say that outright if you've been raised to disguise your messages under loads of rubbish. Granger, drat, Hermione read me well enough, though.

I sat back and folded my arms over my naked chest. I became aware that I looked like a dog on all fours and with a potential boner between his legs. That wouldn't do. I am not ashamed of my body but I had some dignity.

"That would be called harassment, Malfoy," she snarled at me, lifting herself up on her knees as well, to bring her face up to my height. "Are you quite certain that you want to do that?"

"I don't care what it's called," I snarled back. "As long as I can be with you when you wake up in the morning and shag you before you go to work and you come with me when I go out and in the evening we sit together and cuddle our cats together and shag again, in short, you'll be at my side at all times." As I said, that was the most important part.

"Are you asking me to marry you?" she asked wide-eyed again. Marriage again. What was it with women and marriage?

I snarled: "I thought that issue was off the table for now. I would if I was certain you would say yes, which is normally the case when a Malfoy asks and as I just told you I am all prepared for marriage. But for you, that's not a given."

I saw her long face and it gave me a sting. It hurt seeing her wince over something I said. But why did she have to ride this topic out if it hurt her? To me, it was just a chore, something else that was expected. Marriage was the least in my mind when I thought about Granger. Not because I didn't value her. But my connection with Hermione, there, I said it, had nothing to do with conventional society rules, like marriage would be. I wouldn't have minded at all to spend my life with her without the marriage word ever coming up again. But I knew that's not proper either. And marriage was the easiest way to assure to the world that the woman belonged to you and nobody else.

I turned serious immediately and took her in my arms: "Granger, I'm serious. I need you in my life every day. As for marriage, let's weather a bit of the opposition we are going to face, alright? And when the time is right, let me ask you properly." Let me get a feeling for it being the right time, the right thing, something that we both wanted, I thought.

She looked at me for a minute as if weighing if she could live with my shocking opposition even if we were on the same side. Whatever she saw convinced her and she nodded. I exhaled in relief and pulled her deeper into my arms, into my chest. This woman belonged here, right here and nowhere else, I was certain. I was going to ask her. She was mine.

"Besides," I continued speaking in her hair, "in the meantime, you can do a little more convincing in the shag department. I don't like to buy the bird without seeing it fly."

Her head came up and with narrowed eyes she responded slyly: "I think it's quite clear to you which way the bird flies. I'm quite certain that I already score an Outstanding in the shag department. On the other hand, I am actually not quite sure about the getting married thing. At least, not right away. And after the disaster I had in my previous relationship. In my book, I was going to have a career first and leave the babies to someone else for now. So," she paused for effect, "if anybody needs convincing, it is I. But," she patted me comfortingly on my thigh, very close to the loin, "you were off to a good start yesterday and last night. A few more of your performances like that will go a loooong way." She grinned cheekily. I growled and pushed her backward into a lying position. She snickered when I aligned my body over hers. "That," I spoke against her lips, "can be arranged."

And then we went at it again. And again. And again.

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_A/N: Cue Bruno Mars "Marry you" for a little bit of OOC fun. It has a nice melody. The whole marriage/non-marriage thing got a little confusing in the end. I knew where they both were coming from (and it will be better explained later, I hope) but I don't know if you can see it. Let me know how you understood it, alright? _

_Puh, that's it, the shagfest. No more of that, well, maybe here and there but not in that intensity anymore. I need a shower now (winks). This actually got longer than I intended, so I had to spread it over three chapters/installments. Well, they shagged each other to exhaustion. Let's give them a break, alright? There are other important matters to turn to. Loose ends so to say._

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In the afternoon, they were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa over tea in the living room again in front of a fire in the floo-blocked fireplace. Crookshanks had rolled up and nested himself on the backrest of the couch and Hermione had her legs over Draco Malfoy's, her feet in his lap. It was quiet in the room except for the crackling of the fire and Crookshanks' purring as each of its human occupants was staring in the fire and hanging in their own thoughts. Hermione made the first human sound when Malfoy took one of her feet in his hands and started rubbing the sole: she sighed luxuriously and let her head sink back on the armrest behind her, enjoying the feeling of his warm hands on her foot. When he changed feet after a few minutes, Hermione looked up and observed him, wondering what he was doing. He wasn't rubbing her feet thoughtlessly. He didn't look at the fire anymore as he had done until a few minutes ago but studied her feet thoroughly while moving his fingers nimbly over them. He took each toe carefully and pulled it softly straight, rubbed the skin between the toes and the hardened areas on the sole and the upper arch. After watching him for a minute or two, Hermione couldn't hold back anymore:

"Malfoy?"

"Hm?" He murmured without taking his eyes off her feet or stopping his stroking.

Hermione couldn't suppress a smile. Who would have thought that Draco Malfoy was capable of such tender attentions? "What are you doing, exactly?" she asked.

"What does it look like, Granger?" he mumbled back.

Now she grinned openly. "It looks like you are stroking my feet."

"Hm," he confirmed. When after another minute it didn't look like he was going to say more, Hermione pressed on. "Why are you stroking my feet?"

"Because I like it," he mumbled again while continuing his ministrations.

Hermione crossed her arms and with a smug look she further inquired: "Do you have a fetish?"

Malfoy was smoothing his hand over the insole of her right foot at the moment and it tickled a bit. Her foot twitched. He smiled and repeated the move. When the foot lay still this time, he looked up. Hermione was astounded to see that his grey eyes were amazingly clear without anger clouding them.

"Do you want to know if I get off staring at or fondling women's feet? No." He shook his head. "I just like feet. And your feet are pretty."

Hermione eyed him curiously. The way he'd said the last sentence, he had sounded like a little boy, telling his mummy that she was pretty. She didn't think that Draco Malfoy was a Mama's boy as such, but she highly suspected that he had been a little boy when last he had been allowed to say any niceties to anybody. There were so many undiscovered layers in him that sometimes, she felt that she was re-discovering a book that she had discarded as unsuitable a long time ago, and only now was she able to appreciate it.

"Why do you like feet?" she asked, wanting to uncover a new layer of Draco Malfoy.

He had turned his attention back to his lap and matched his fingertips to the tips of the toes, tapping each in turn. "They are solid, quiet and unassuming. They carry huge burdens without complains and still look pretty. When well cared for, they are soft and I like painted toenails."

Hermione contemplated the man on the other end of her sofa. "Everything you are not?"

He nodded. "Except for the toenails."

Hermione snorted. Draco Malfoy was too masculine to even be mention with painted toenails in the same sentence. Apart from his lordly snarling demeanour, he exuded an air of masculinity. There were men who had a female side and it fit their persona. But Draco Malfoy was anything but female. Every part of him said 'male', starting by his handsome face with the sharp jaw, his clear piercing eyes and his lean, very masculine body with broad shoulders and slim hips. Not to mention what he carried underneath his trousers. He moved with the grace of a predator animal and his smell, besides his cologne, carried the hint of musky maleness. Hermione loved it. He was harsh and unyielding, firm and focused with a sharp mind. His attitude in life was that of one who deserved everything and he took possession of what he wanted without asking. Something that Hermione Granger appreciated very much. She had been used to work hard or fight or wait patiently for what she wanted all her life and for once, she didn't have to strain herself to reach but was taken. She couldn't deny that that felt exceptionally good. And his unexpected calm and tenderness was like balm on the nerves she lost when she worked too hard. Being Hermione Granger, though, she wanted to reciprocate.

When no further answer came from Malfoy, she pulled herself up and her feet out of his grip to kneel over his lap. He looked up and at her expectantly. When their eyes connected, she said: "I think you are pretty solid." She put her hands on his chest. "And I bet it can be pretty quiet in there." She lowered her elbows down to his chest to bring her face closer to his. "And who says that you shouldn't complain if the burden is too cumbersome?"

When he broke the eye contact, looking to the side on an exhale, she put one hand on the averted cheek and pulled his face back. "And we have yet to see how soft you can become under actual care."

After a short glance into Hermione's warm brown eyes, Draco tried to shift away. Held by her hand, he inadvertently pushed his cheek into it and, realizing that he couldn't turn away, he closed his eyes.

"We can't help with the "unassuming" part, though, I believe. That's a lost cause," Hermione added as an afterthought and with a smile.

Malfoy snorted and, having regained his composure, he opened his eyes and, looking past the woman on his rump at the fire, he said quietly: "It's not that I was a neglected child. I got whatever I wanted and more."

Relentless, Hermione said what was on her mind: "Neglect can be very subjective. And you never got what you wanted most, your father's unconditional love and acceptance."

"Is it that obvious?" he mumbled, still looking at the fire.

Hermione sighed. "To me, yes."

"Drat," Malfoy pressed out between clenched teeth. "If you saw it, every other Slytherin will have seen it as well."

"Not the guys, I believe," Hermione tried to comfort him. "Men are rather good at denying what they don't want to see. And if your peers have been raised the same way as you, they would consider it normal and not notice it. And the girls were rather busy with gaining your attention, I assume, and not with focusing on any potential short-comings on your behalf, I expect."

"Hm," Draco made unspecifically, still staring into the fire. He didn't want to share with her that that would be exactly what Slytherin women did to get what they wanted. Blackmail was the straightest way to achieve and protect your interests. When it became obvious that again he wouldn't say more, Hermione pulled his face again to her.

"Draco," she said. "It's not your fault that your father was so dissatisfied with his life that he couldn't even show his only son how much he loved him. Could you imagine that your father was constantly afraid for your and your mother's life and safety that he made himself so miserable that he couldn't for the world show any love? And how is that your fault?"

"I could have been better and he needn't have worried about my safety," he mumbled.

"No, you couldn't," Hermione argued against. "You were a child. And it took two people to be a better flier and better academically, just as an example. How were you going to combine that in your one person? You already made yourself miserable with the amount of work you have been doing. The day has only 24 hours, you know?"

"I didn't do that much work," he hedged.

"Then you are even smarter than me and bully to you, because I did an insane amount of work to receive the grades I had," Hermione exclaimed.

"See? With more work, then, I could have been better than you," Draco exclaimed back.

"And then your father would have found something else to be dissatisfied about. Don't delude yourself, Draco. Your father's misery has nothing to do with you. You are not responsible for your father's attitudes." Hermione calmed herself. It wouldn't do if they yelled at each other over such issues.

For a moment, it looked like Draco was going to say something back. But then he wrapped his arms around her body hovering over his and moved her into his side. Hermione snuggled into his shoulder and stretched out on the couch, squeezed between his warm body and the couch backrest. He spoke against her forehead.

"Stop psychoanalysing me, Granger. I appreciate the effort but it won't change anything. My relationship with my father may not be perfect and our alignment with Voldemort may not reflect well on my family but I am still proud to be a Malfoy and everything they stand for. I am still the git you knew from school. I just don't insult you anymore."

"No, you are not," Hermione mumbled into his chest. "I couldn't let you be with me if you were."

Draco Malfoy took this in silence. He breathed into her hair but refrained from saying anything. Instead, he stroked over Hermione's back and shoulders. After a few minutes, Hermione again couldn't stand the silence anymore with all the burning issues they had to discuss.

"Draco?"

"What, Hermione?"

"What happened with the compow yesterday?"

That took him from outer left field. He had thought she was going to continue nagging him and his family history, as women usually do, trying to make him all better or find more information. That she actually switched topic took him by surprise, and he struggled for a second to reign in his anger. He stalled.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how is it possible that our combined magic dissolves an unbreakable marriage bond? A bond that is anchored in two magical people and shouldn't even be accessible with one connected person absent? What did we do to make that possible?"

"Heck, Granger, how shall I know? We shagged, the compow imploded, the bond broke."

"Why, Malfoy? Why did the bond break? What did we do to break it? We didn't even access the compow."

Draco Malfoy groaned. "I don't know, do I? Stop pestering me. It exploded before, apparently it does that from time to time."

Hermione didn't let up. "It did explode before, that's right. We fought and it exploded. This time, it imploded. We didn't fight. On the contrary, we, well, united," she mused.

"See?" Draco piped up triumphantly. "We fight, it explodes, we shag, it implodes, end of story."

"No, Draco. Then it would do something every time we sleep together. And after that implosion it has remained quiet. We had earth shattering, mind-boggling orgasms since then, and no sign of the compow. So, sexual bliss has no effect on the compow." Draco observed that Hermione had that straight crease down the middle of her forehead, indicating her deep thinking. It was cute in a way.

Draco waggled his eyebrows. "Really? Earth shattering, mind-boggling? Want to do it again?"

Hermione was still in thought and ignored his innuendo. "What did you feel when the compow imploded? You looked a little out of it."

Draco felt irritated. He wanted to entice her to another interlude and she ..? He was a little reluctant to think back to what had happened. "You pulled your feet away and I fell onto you and it shot right into my loin. After that I just wanted to get into you as quickly as possible."

"Right, first, I resisted but when I gave up, you lost control and went at it with lightning speed."

"I seem to be doing that a lot around you, lately, losing control," he mumbled.

"But you looked so lost," Hermione mumbled to herself and stretched a hand out to stroke his cheek and lips. "Behind the glaze of your eyes, you looked so forlorn. And eager for connection."

"Was that when you said, you'd take me? And offered to belong to you? And then the bond was ripped out of me." His grey eyes were dark again in reminiscence and they pierced Hermione as if she had done him harm with her offer. He inhaled deeply, remembering the intense sensation of the ripping. And the sound of something fundamental breaking.

Hermione remembered the same thing, how his come had flooded her and pushed her over the brink and the abysmal sound of a strong hold snapping had drowned everything out. She shuddered over the intensity of her memory.

"It felt similar when we adjuncted," Draco mumbled further.

This time Hermione actually looked at him. "What did?"

He looked to the side and not directly at her. "I was angry. Potter had sliced me open, and you still defended him. I felt betrayed because I thought you would believe me, even if I tweaked the truth in my favour. I was exhausted from the pressure of repairing that damn cupboard and then you sat at my bed and eyed me like I was a nest of doxies residing in your closet in your favourite dress. Or grindylows in your bathtub. After you had comforted me before, I felt betrayed by your hostility. With hindsight, of course, I know that you were angry at me because I did attack Potter out of my desperation. And then you said you were sorry that I got hit with a curse for enemies because you didn't consider me an enemy anymore. You turned my whole world upside down that night. I was furious that you did that. Why couldn't you have just kept to the straight lines of good and bad, dark and light, enemy and friend? Perhaps I liked being your enemy and antagonizing you at every turn. And you destroyed in those few word every belief I'd been taught and I couldn't continue as before without profoundly lying to myself. I was barking madly furious and I lost control over my temper and my magic with it, I believe. You took it all in and we adjuncted. And it felt similar to just before the breaking of the bond yesterday."

Hermione wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulling herself up into a better position, she kissed him bracingly full on the mouth. Draco took it. He took her lips like a thirsty man takes a glass of water and returned her kiss. For several minutes. Pulling her body close to his, he was reminded again how well her soft curves fit into his shape.

Hermione detached her lips mid-kiss because she wanted to say what she had to say: "I was sorry. I was sorry that you stood on the other side. I saw you suffering, you lost weight and your complexion became grey and hollow over the year. You looked like hell and I couldn't help you. And I felt drawn to wanting to help you after the first night in the classroom. And it made me so mad that I couldn't that I sometimes cried for anger in my pillow at night. I cried because of Ron and Lavender as well, so nobody was any the wiser, but I know why I cried."

He didn't need to say "Thank you for caring" or "Thank you for worrying" or simply "Thank you". With a piercing glance he bore his way into her root at the apex of her pelvis and with the warmth spreading through her rump, Hermione knew she needed him closer. Malfoy recaptured her lips and when she put her upper leg over his, he turned her on her back and settled himself between her legs. Snogging and dry-humping each other for a few minutes, she closed her legs behind his back and pulled him right to her centre. He pressed his hard length right on it and moaned into her mouth. They had made a point of getting dressed before lunch to bring some normality into their day. Deezy had brought a change of clothes for Malfoy with the lunch, as well. But Hermione could feel his erection through the comfortable skirt she had pulled on because she had anticipated that her leg garment would have to go quickly at one point again and when she pulled him closer yet, she couldn't stand not feeling him in her.

"Come in, Draco, please, come in," she breathed on his mouth. He groaned and nestled his zipper open to free his shaft and coming up on his knees, he shoved her skirt up and pulled her panties off. Looking at her, he settled between her legs again and when Hermione felt the tip of him at her entrance she closed her eyes in relaxation, expecting him to come in at his leisure. They were past the point of him needing to ask extra permission. He started sinking into her but paused with just the head in. She opened her eyes again, to see what held him up, and found him watching her with an intensity that made her throat constrict and her stomach tingle. She swallowed against the lump in her throat but didn't want to do anything against the tingling. It was very pleasant. Hermione looked in his eyes and dug her hand in his silky hair.

"Take me in, Hermione", Malfoy whispered hoarsely.

"Yes," she sighed, relaxing into the armrest behind her back. He pushed further in and then stopped again.

"Take me in" he said again.

"Yes," she said again. And so they went on, millimetre for millimetre.

"Take me in, take me in, take me in," he said with an increasingly pressured voice until he reached the end of her channel.

And "yes, yes, yes," she moaned, pushing him into her with her legs behind him, becoming louder and louder until he filled her up entirely. And then they laid still, breathing into each other's faces, his forehead resting on hers. They were so occupied with their breathing and the sensations of their union that they didn't notice the purple hue that the air took on around them.

When she pushed him further again and moved her hips, he moved with minimal strokes, not wanting to pull farther out.

"Yes," Hermione moaned.

"Yes," Draco groaned.

"YES." She felt her womb clenching in anticipation of the big one.

"YES," he moaned, diving and driving into her depth where he felt best.

"YES!" she yelled when her inner muscles clamped around his cock.

"YES!" he whimpered when he felt the muscle vice around his shaft.

"YES! YES! YES!" she screamed when her back bent backwards and his warm liquid filled her.

"YES! YES! YES!" he groaned when he felt his come shoot out and into her warmth.

And then he tensed with noises that sounded like "Hm, hm, hm" and "huh" pants of air to release the tension.

And she embraced him with her legs around his back and her arms around his shoulders and her hands in his hair, pulling his head to the side of hers and panting into his ear.

And in this way they stayed, enveloped in purple light.

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><em>AN: So, Shagfest 4 Anyone? _

_Enough clues for the compow? No? Need more?_

_Keep reading – on this site - soon_

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	26. Closer

_A/N: Yay, reviews. Thanks to (in order) articcat621, nikki98, scv914, 86 (virtual cookie for you, for sure, AND a hot chocolate), VampireQueenBrittany (thanks, honey, for the favourite author as well), thedirtysockfairy (thank you, you made my day), FinallySlytherin (you, too. Heartwarming reviews like yours and thedirtysockfairy's, I can only take one a day. Don't give up on Ron yet. He had a reason to be in the books and he is just klutzy in comparison with the "sophisticated" Draco, at least in my story. It'll get worse, and then it'll get better in the end, I believe. At least, that's what I have in mind.)_

_As for the fact that I should have more reviews, I couldn't agree more ;-))). But I got over 100 reviews so far (Yeah) and I have faith that now, since many people have put me on their favourite lists (and I was told my story is being recommended on other websites), my story will get around, even when I stop updating because the story is complete. I mean, Isolation is on the net for over three years, right? Perhaps I should take more time between updates, what do you think? ;-)))_

_One reviewer, amongst tons of praise brought up the topic that I would do even better with a beta. I believe I mentioned in the early beginning of this story that I would like nothing better than a beta but nobody has volunteered as of yet. I would love to have a beta who can correct my English shortcomings. Remember, I ('m trying to) use British English (because, duh). And sometimes I write so fast, that I overlook one-letter or connection words or negations. My worst shortcoming, though, I believe, is compunction. And self-correct programs sometimes propose corrections that I would have suspected coming from a guy sitting in India who learns English from a manual while writing the program (argh). I mean, even I know better than that. But I agree that a beta would help to make the story even better, because sometimes, I feel like a welder trying to wring the story with my side cutter or soldering iron when I should be like a gold smith, engraving the finer points. _

_And …_

_for once, I would like to thank a particular person (and then it became two) who "just" put me up on their favourite list (without a review) because they put me right below Bexchan's "Isolation". Yeah. You people are giving me too much credit but I love it, I have to admit. I put on Adam Lambert's "For your Entertainment" and danced through my living room when I saw that. Thanks, MisticLane and aprilbabe95, you made my day, too (different days, too, which was even better)._

_A question came up in a review and here's my answer: no, the compow doesn't hum. When I wrote "hum" somewhere, I figure, it meant their bodies, you know, when you shag good, your body hums in pleasure, that kind of thing? Been there, done that? No? Definitely put it on your To-do list (always remember protection, girls)._

_The compow appears, though, at times, under specific circumstances. It's part of the reason why it exists and it has to do with who and what they are and how they behave toward each other (hint, hint). Draco and Hermione can see it by its purple glow swirling around them. There is a lot of explanation coming in this chapter. And we'll finally learn why Hermione behaves so strangely. In a typical female way, she jumbled everything together (or maybe it's just me, being female). It cost some sweat to deconstruct her thoughts. Happy reading._

_Last calls for guesses of the compow manifestation (there's a big hint in this chapter, and yes, dirtysockfairy, the breaking spells will have something to do with it) but that's only a part of what they can do with it, as Hermione so rightfully considers) because we'll be getting there. Soon._

_Oookay, now that my notes became their own novel, enough about me, and on with the show. _

_EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT in this chapter, big warning, only for mature readers._

_And the characters don't belong to me, only the story line._

**.**

**Chapter 19: Closer**

**.**

Hermione felt wonderful. His warm body on hers, his smell in her nose, his silky hair on her cheek and his soft breathing in her ear, she felt like life had dealt her an ace. She had her hands on his broad shoulders and could feel the muscles under the cloth. Sure, Ron had been muscular in a way as well, but there was something to the feeling of Draco Malfoys body that just didn't compare. When she slid her hands further down his back, she could feel the muscles rippling there when he pushed his back against her strokes and it just felt wonderful. She breathed deeply and felt the relaxation sweep all over her body.

She had never known how good it felt to hold and to be held; to be one, to come together with a man. She had always expected to fight for her rights in a relationship; her rights to remain herself, to continue her studies, her work, to negotiate what she wanted even between the sheets, and not to become subservient to her partner's will and wishes. She had expected a tug of war in a relationship, especially as they were somewhat medieval with regards to the woman's role in the magical world. She had never expected for it to feel so blissfully right to have this man between her legs and over her body that everything else fell by the wayside. Even though this man was not the man she had expected to be the one to feel so right with. Au contraire, this man covering her body warmly with his was the man she had always least expected to be the one to make her thus content.

Life was complicated. That much was clear. But sometimes life was more complicated when you expected normality and found your world upside down as when you accepted the unusual and found that you were closer than expected. When you inadvertently found that you fit very well, for example. Or when you just had to negotiate the essentials in the beginning, but the mutual attraction would pull you over the bumps in the road.

It had thrown her for a loop when Ron and she hadn't worked. For the last three years of school and horcrux hunting, she had believed Ron and she were meant to be an item. And so had their friends. They had supported her, even when Ron had needed more time to come to the same conclusion. When they had finally come together everybody had rejoiced. She had thought, after all this fighting in the war, things were finally going right, were falling into place. She had expected that she would enjoy the tender love with the man she had wanted for a long time and recover from the hardships of the war. And then it had turned out that Ron had expected her to accommodate him and bend herself backwards to please him. She couldn't have done it. She had deserved a respite as much as everybody else; she hadn't wanted to strain herself for another human being again so soon. And so they had fallen apart. And she was quickly replaced by a woman who made it her life goal to please Ronald Weasley. A woman, whose life Hermione had saved the night of the final battle, and after she had already taken the man Hermione had wanted once before. But Hermione didn't mind that much; it only showed that perhaps Lavender was meant to be the one for Ron, and not Hermione. He was still her friend, and if he found happiness with Lavender she wished him all the best. And perhaps she had misjudged the situation. It wouldn't be the first time she was wrong about something. She had always been attracted to Ron's skill to take the stress out of a situation through his particular humour and goofiness. He was very gifted to take the pressure of life and that was something that she needed very much in a boyfriend. But that was no reason to cling to a partner who was wrong in every other aspect.

The fact that Draco Malfoy could do the very same thing as Ron, with different means, was more than astonishing. Of course, Draco Malfoy was not about comic relief in life. There was nothing comical about Malfoy. He exuded the air of a docile, at the moment well fed lion that would be highly ferocious if it became hungry again. That shouldn't take her joy out of the fact that she was able to pet his belly now, though. And his witticisms and ironic or sarcastic, even his snide remarks made her laugh at times just as much as Ron's goofiness. Perhaps on a more sophisticated level. And something that Ron couldn't have done, the fact that Malfoy took her by her (sexual) root and catapulted her to unknown heights, pleased her very much.

She stretched luxuriously under the warm body covering her.

"Am I crushing you?" murmured his lazy voice right into her ear.

"No," she murmured back. "You feel like a warm blanket."

"Good," he drawled. "Then I'll stay here a little longer." He nuzzled his nose into the space behind her ear, inhaled deeply and wriggled himself deeper between her legs.

"Please do," she whispered back and enjoyed the feeling of him so close, his smell under her nose.

His drawl reminded Hermione of the fact that they had dreaded Malfoy's interference while they had been at school. His drawling voice in any situation had never meant anything good. So, how did it come that it didn't strike terror in her heart anymore when she heard him? He had wriggled himself into her consciousness. She had started to understand during the night in the classroom that he was not only a bad boy Malfoy but a child like she and Harry and all the others in a stupid adult's game of power. They had to grow up quickly and fight a grown-up fight to survive. All of them, Draco Malfoy included. After that night, there had been some kind of a truce between them, and she had watched from afar how he had wasted away under the pressure and had wished she could do something, anything. He had repaid her compassion from the night with little supportive comments, she realized with hindsight. And when Harry hit him with the curse, she just had to see what it had done to him, on top of everything. And their magic had adjuncted. Because they were equal.

He had warned her before the night of Dumbledore's death, and she had prayed to every deity known to humankind that night that he wouldn't do anything that would destroy him for good. The night had been horrible, and the loss of Dumbledore had hit them hard, but she had been oddly relieved that it hadn't been Draco who killed their old headmaster. Then her connection with him had been overshadowed by the events of the horcrux hunting. But after he had taken part of her pain from his aunt's torture from her, and after the final battle when Harry had saved him from certain gruesome death through Fiendfyre and she had finally been able to speak to him again, he had come up in her thoughts infrequently. She just had to defend him in the Wizengamot's court; she felt she owed him that. And when she was fighting with Ron over boundaries in their relationship, Malfoy had come up in her thoughts as oddly supportive. She had seen him in her mind, sneering at Ron's antics. He had already told her in sixth year that he considered her above Ron and couldn't understand what she wanted with a weasel, whose own needs would always come first, as he had accurately observed. Not that he had offered himself as a replacement for her affections. That was a thought still too far removed.

They had begun to work their magic; and realized in the process how it affected them to be so close. Working it, the magic didn't force them together, but Malfoy had shown an appreciation for their curious force of magic she hadn't expected. And combined with the fact that they could develop something useful with and from it, had made her more willing to work closely with him. At least, that was what Hermione had thought all along, that the magic didn't force them. She had thought the truce still applied and they had worked the compow for the common good, to help with the tracking of the Death Eaters. The fact that Draco didn't want to be part of Voldemort's followers anymore she had known all along. They had gotten to know each other. She had discovered that Draco Malfoy was not only cuttingly insulting but also sharply intelligent behind the animosity, and hard-working, and that had brought further a certain respect for his person. The excitement of working with this thrilling new magic had spilled over into their emotional life at times and led to irrational exuberance, but she would have never thought that Draco Malfoy could develop any kind of feelings for her as a person, as a woman. She had still been convinced that he would never consort with "her kind", even when he slept with her the first time, which was only confirmed when he had gotten engaged to a pureblood right after. She had thought the thrill of their work had spilled over, again, and let to irrational behaviour in their one-time romp. She couldn't deny a certain attraction, after all he was a prime example of a man, and he must have felt something similar after all their exciting work. Such things happened, and she had enjoyed being so un-Hermionish for once, jumping Draco Malfoy and taking something for her own pleasure, especially in light of the fact that she hadn't been sexually exciting enough for one Ronald Weasley. It had gone down like oil to know that she was more than sufficient to satisfy a connoisseur like Draco Malfoy. But she hadn't thought that she could have a relationship with Draco Malfoy, and when he had brought it up she had choked on the very thought. It just didn't want to go down. It had clogged her throat. Like fear. She was Hermione Granger, she was a Gryffindor, and she was not afraid. But she didn't want to think it through to the end, what it would do to her if she opened herself up to the unknown of trusting a man she would never have thought she'd be able to trust; and how it would feel to fall deeply, if and when he dumped her and laughed in her face because of her naïveté, to think he could fall for her. After her fiasco with Ron, whom she had trusted with her life, she couldn't imagine trusting an unlikely person like a former enemy; even though if he was no enemy anymore.

And then he had watched over her hospital bed and brought her home. And she had received him because it had been so good the previous time and he had been so lost, deep inside, and it had reminded her of the classroom in sixth year. She had received him into her body, even though, deep down she still didn't believe he would want her of all people. She knew she might have to regret her actions when he turned on her after she had fulfilled her purpose as soul comfort, but she couldn't let him suffer; it felt wrong to do that. The magic had acted and broken his marriage bond, and it was that more than anything that convinced her that they didn't act necessarily freely and consciously, especially when they both hadn't felt in control in that act. Even though since then he had behaved in a way that showed his sincerity (within his means), she was still stuck in her childhood world where one couldn't trust a Malfoy. And with the magic pushing them, she couldn't trust his feelings either, as much as he endorsed them.

She had accepted that he wanted to date her. She could do that. Dating was a way to get to know one another, to go out together and have a good time. They had worked together for five months, they had had decent conversations, she enjoyed his cleverness and his sexual prowess, dating would work. It didn't necessarily have to lead to marriage. But then the m-word had fallen right after that and it had put her on high alert. She didn't want to marry at nineteen (especially not after her last failed relationship) and produce children like Molly Weasley. She loved Ginny's mother like her own, but she did not want to walk in her shoes.

And marry Malfoy? Why would she want to think about marrying him when she had barely wrapped her head around the fact that they would be going out together? When he still showed her and told her that she was different, without proof that different was good? Of course she wasn't like the pureblood women he had dated before, but was that a good thing? He had told her all through their time at school that she was not good enough. And how had that changed all of a sudden?

He said it wasn't sudden to him. But it was sudden to her because until yesterday, until their mutual magic had broken the bond, he had been engaged to a pureblood girl he didn't love. He treated her differently than the pureblood girls of his acquaintance, but how was that good? He behaved at times oddly atypical, not at all the way she had come to know Draco Malfoy from their time at school. He was amenable and gentle at times and that did not fit the Draco Malfoy she knew. Just like her impulsive reaction to his insinuations of infidelity or his previous experiences didn't fit.

Every time she helped him, received him, comforted him or accepted him, she felt one with him and was certain that he belonged to her. And then they disagreed about something or other, and it occurred to her who she was fighting with; and she was back to square one, thinking that she could never be together with Draco Malfoy; especially when the compow controlled some of their actions, if not all. She had thought about that when he had gone back to sleep this morning. Their shagging was great, phenomenal even. But wasn't he going to tire of her eventually and go back to his usual behaviour?

He had told her that she was not his usual type. And he had been shocked when he had suspected she could have become pregnant. Wasn't that a clear sign that he did not want any attachment to her apart from the physical intimacy? And she couldn't live with that, she couldn't put her heart in now when she didn't know if and when he would dump her.

Theo said Draco had changed. But how much and in what way? Normally, she would have been able to sit back and let things unfold, but with the compow flying around, taking control, Hermione wasn't certain what was real and what not. It was so terribly confusing. She took a deep breath to clear her mind and caught another whiff of his smell.

She had enjoyed this last bout of union. Heck, it felt splendid each and every time to climax with him, but this last one was especially pleasing. It had felt good every time she had given up her reservation toward him and just embraced what he gave her. Exceptionally good. But combining his request for reception with the sexual bliss they experienced together had given her a new dimension of gratification. It simply felt wonderful and right to be with him. This was not the first time she felt the rightness with him, but the first time Hermione realized that she would want to, that she deserved to have that every day. And that Draco wouldn't mind having that every day either. Dating. Highly satisfied, she tightened her legs around him again and contracted her inner muscles to pull his slowly deflating member deeper into her and felt him exhale and 'hmmm' against her neck and wriggle again into her.

And then she opened her eyes and all her insights went to hell.

Because as soon as her eyes were open she realized by the purple glow around them that the compow was active. And that in her eyes negated her whole blissful experience because it meant for her that the compow had interfered again. And she didn't know how much it had pushed them again. Was she ever going to be sure that she slept with him or he with her because they wanted to? What about their other interactions? Was anything they said guided by the compow as well? When he told her he needed her, had he meant it or had the compow pushed him to say it?

And with these thoughts tumbling through her head she freaked out. Breathing deeply, it turned to hyperventilation quickly and she started to sob. Loudly. And the light vanished.

With her first sob, Draco shot up from her neck and looked at her as if he had been struck by lightning. When he saw her sobbing and panting and wailing, he wasn't able to move for a second or two and he just stared. When he saw tears flowing down her cheeks, he slowly remembered that he had crying women in his bed before. They usually had wanted to be held and kissed, and so he took Hermione's face in his hands to pull her up and embrace her. But she fought him. She shook her head violently and gripped his forearms pulling, for him to let go. Now Draco Malfoy was in shock.

"What, Granger, what?" he asked. She continued her wailing and sobbing with renewed vehemence. She made a pitiful picture with her skirt hitched up to her waist and missing panties, her clothes rumbled, her hair tousled from their previous romp and her face flushed, now from crying her heart out. Draco thought he had never seen anything more pitiable and more lovable.

He couldn't help but grin a bit against his will. Crying women in bed was an oddity but not unusual for him. Her climax must have been good, he thought. It was strange that she fought him, but this was Granger. She just didn't tick like the other women, and that was one reason why he liked her. He'd never seen her so emotional, but it drove the point home that she was a woman after all. Not that he hadn't noticed before. But it was good to see that she reacted like other woman at times. It was more normal that way.

"Alright, Granger, calm down," he said nonchalantly. To no avail. She turned on her side, away from him, and rolled up into a sobbing ball. This was even odder. He tried again, though. He was, after all, the one with way more experience in that area.

"Granger, take deep breaths. It's alright. Sometimes, a climax is so good that it leaves you in a state. It'll be alright. Just keep breathing deeply, and it'll go away." He tried to stroke her shoulder but was arrested by her sudden silence. Just before he touched her shoulder, she turned her head to him and her tear-filled eyes looked at him incredulously.

"You think I'm crying because I had a good orgasm?" she hissed.

Draco was taken aback and froze where he was, with his hand outstretched. Why did she hiss?

"Well, don't you?" he ventured tentatively.

"No!" she cried out, and turning back to the sofa backrest she started her sobbing anew.

"Erm, alright," Draco said in light of her distress. It occurred to him that he sounded a lot like the clueless weasel, and he frowned. But when he was about to snarl at her to get a grip and tell him what was going on, in his inbred Malfoy way, he took a deep breath and reined himself in and chose to say: "Granger, what's wrong?" For more emphasis, he even put his hand on her shoulder as he had originally intended and stroked his thumb over her shoulder blade. He felt good doing that.

He actually felt so exceptionally good, comforting a sobbing Granger that he pulled her back over and took her shaking body in his arms. He hushed her, making "Shhh" into her hair and on her forehead and rocked her a little back and forth until she calmed. Totally new experience but not bad. It felt like a warm blanket wrapping around him when he did that. Warm was good. Not bad at all, this.

When her tears stopped running and her wailing quieted, he took her chin in his hand and pulled her face up to look into. Her eyes looked blank and despaired.

He frowned. "Alright, Granger, pray tell, what was that?" He didn't speak in his usual snarl, but there was a certain sharpness in his voice and Hermione winced. He sighed.

"I'm going spare, here. Tell me what that was, Granger, so Merlin help me."

"Did you see the purple light?" she asked hoarsely, her voice all clogged up from the crying and wailing.

He frowned deeper. "Purple light?"

She frowned as well. "Yes, purple light. From the compow."

It dawned on him. "You saw the compow? What did it do?"

She shook her head. "That's the thing, I don't know."

He let go of her chin and massaged his forehead. "Then why cry about it?" He exhaled sharply. He would never understand women and their unmitigated crying, even if he became 150 years old. Which was likely. The Malfoys were known for their longevity.

Well, perhaps the aggravation with this witch in his arms would cut a few years off. She almost yelled at him: "I don't know if it did anything, that's the whole point."

Draco took his arms away in shock and threw them out to the side. He looked at her the way parents look at a rambling child and said drily: "You lost me, Granger. And I am not sure if I want to be found again."

That made her laugh. Her laugh was a little desperate but a laugh none the less. She put her forehead on his shoulder and tittered into his shirt. He put his arms around her again and dug his hands into her hair. With that he lifted her head, so she would look at him again, and said calmly: "Explain."

Hermione inhaled and exhaled once deeply and, having regained her composure, spoke quietly: "It felt so wonderful. This time it was so affirmative, so bracing. And to have you in my arms afterward was so relaxing and peaceful and blissful, and I finally thought I understood. And then I opened my eyes and saw the purple of the compow. And I don't know if it did anything, if it pushed us again to, or you to … you know."

"Shag," he complemented.

"Yes," she confirmed quietly.

"Why do you insist that it does that? Why would it do that?" he inquired a little impatiently.

"Because it did it before, to break the bond," Hermione explained desperately.

He moved his hands down to her arms. "So, what do you want to do, never shag again because the compow might push you to it? And so what? Perhaps it's in the kinky way and likes watching."

Hermione slapped his chest. "That's disgusting, Draco Malfoy."

He chuckled. "Yes, well. I didn't feel any magic pushing me, so perhaps it was just watching."

Hermione pulled a face. "Urgh. Wait, didn't you feel it pushing you the last time or when the bond broke?"

He thought back. "Well, I admit that something else took the main control back there." But then he turned his focus back on the woman in front of him and folded his arms in front of his chest. "That doesn't mean that I acted against my will or that I was forced to do something. And neither was I today."

"But what was it doing then?" Hermione looked puzzled if not upset anymore.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Granger, how am I supposed to know? Am I an expert for the compow, now?" he complained.

Hermione started heatedly: "You seemed to have a fairly good understanding of things happening when the compow started ..to.. dissolve…," but drifted off toward the end.

"Spells," Draco finished slowly. He had grasped what she was going to say immediately. Why hadn't they thought of that before? "When the compow started to dissolve spells. It started with the Petrificus, then the wards, then that 'Katatonici' spell on you and the marriage bond."

(_A/N: And it was so clear ;-))) thedirtysockfairy was on the right track with this one. But this is only a part of the whole. ;-)) 86 said something about peace and light. Put it together and you're getting closer ;-))_

"Yes," Hermione breathed.

"It's a spell breaker. Like the curse breakers working for Gringott's," he said in awe.

"That's an idea but what kind of spells?" Hermione asked cautiously, already thinking further, remembering her dream and the fact that the compow was supposed to have something from both of them.

Draco was taken aback over her lack of enthusiasm. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what kind of spells does it break? Does it break each and every spell? And if not, what do the spells that it broke for us have in common?" Hermione clarified with scepticism written all over her face.

"Does it matter?" Draco asked.

"I'm not sure," she proceeded tentatively. "I don't know if it matters. But the spell-breakings that we witnessed were very heavy handed."

Draco sneered. "If you want to speak in riddles, you have to find somebody with more patience to listen. If you want to say something, just spit it out."

Hermione smiled grimly. "I mean, the Petrificus is a strong spell, as good as unbreakable. You can shake some spells off, but the Petrificus is known for its stability. The wards to the hut were incredibly strong, and the spell on me we didn't even know but the compow broke it. The marriage bond is historical for its resistance to spell-breaking, because it was invented to bind slaves to their masters and was later modified when some of them fell in love and happened to be quite happy with their bond. But I'm sure that we encountered other spells and the compow didn't even move in those cases. What does that give us?" She looked expectantly at the normally fairly smart and quick-witted young man whose lap she was sitting on.

Draco reflected, looking to the fire. "Well, for one, the compow does not decide which spells it breaks and when to move. I know we are the ones who activated the compow each time, perhaps unconsciously. Remember, minimal intent is enough. And the spells it broke have in common that they are almost impossible to break."

"Almost?" Hermione questioned.

Draco glanced back at her. "Yes, almost, because we broke them."

Hermione shook her head. "The compow broke them. But they are actually unbreakable."

Draco pondered: "So the compow dissolves unbreakable spells that we encounter?"

Hermione mused: "It looks like it, but why would it do that?"

"Does it need a reason?" Draco wondered.

"There has to be a reason for this whole shebang," Hermione exclaimed vehemently, startling Draco. "Why we two of all people adjuncted, there has to be a reason that it had to be us two. Two people who used to hate each other's guts. Two people who fought at every opportunity, who wouldn't give each other the black under their fingernails, who… ." She had talked herself quickly into a rage and shook in anger.

Draco closed his arms around her again and pulled her as close as possible to his chest, pressing her face into the collar of his shirt, blowing hot air into her hair when he said "Shhhh". He was getting used to this whole embracing thing. Granger fit nicely against his chest and neck. And her smell was more pronounced directly under his nose. He closed his eyes and saw his mother's yellow climbing roses whipping in warm summer wind in his mind, directly under his window at the Manor. He had fallen asleep with that smell many times.

He waited until her breathing against his throat had calmed before he moved back to look in her face.

"You want to know what's happening between us," he said sternly. It was not a question. Hermione nodded nonetheless. His grey eyes pierced hers with an intensity that made her a little timid but tingled at the same time. This was Draco Malfoy after all, and even though Harry had beat him and they had ridiculed him all during school, it occurred to Hermione that he was a formidably powerful (handsome) wizard who was not to be crossed. His next words calmed her a little; and the fact that his arms were still tightly wrapped around her.

"You want to know if we are falling in love, if I am falling in love with you, and if you can trust me enough for it to last or if we are being forced by something magical and as soon as its purpose is fulfilled, I will discard you and go back to insulting you."

Hermione nodded again, her throat too constricted to actually say anything.

Draco frowned, looking at her as if she was supposed to have the answers and didn't. "I would like to know that myself. I don't have the answers," he growled. Upon seeing her eyes fill up with tears, he put one hand on her cheek and continued.

"Let me finish. I don't know if we are falling in love. We'll have to wait and see. What I do know, is that nothing is forcing me. I would say, nothing and nobody is forcing a Malfoy, but not only have I said that a million times before, you also know how ridiculous it sounds and that it is not true." He looked off into the distance for a moment, annoyed, snorted once, and then turned back to the witch on his lap. "As much as I hate to admit, I didn't feel good when I got engaged. It gave me a sting when I signed my name at the registry. And when we stopped working altogether, it made me restless being without you and the compow, and as if something was missing." He scowled, entirely uncomfortable with his admission that there was another human being he needed, apart from himself.

"But that is exactly the effect that the adjuncted combined magic is supposed to have. How can you be certain that it's not the effect from the divided compow re-uniting?" Hermione questioned desperately with a clogged-up voice.

Draco looked at her desperation, felt it actually coming from her, and wondered how he had ended up in a situation where he didn't like Granger worrying about something. "How can I explain it? I've never felt like this before, but I know it is what I feel. Just because it is unlikely that we should feel something, anything for each other, doesn't mean that we are being forced. I have no point of comparison but you have. When you fell in love with Weasley, did it feel any different? I ask for comparison purposes only," he finished hastily.

Hermione screwed up her face in thought and against her tears. "Yes. It was … less intense overall. More content. But also more desperate at first and frustrating in the end. I wanted him desperately to notice me, and when he finally did it was somewhat anti-climactic. I didn't feel like I needed to touch him at all times, though. I didn't need to be close to him. I was perfectly fine for a day without him and then happy to see him again, but not sad because we were separated."

"Are you sad when we are separated?" Draco asked quietly.

Hermione frowned, thinking. "No, not sad. But I also feel as if something is missing. And I'm … relieved when I see you again but not jump-for–joy happy like a person who's irrevocably in love, you know? And that is so much like that feeling described for the adjuncted magic that I don't trust my feelings to be real."

"But it was also written that the adjuncted carriers of magic were able to live perfectly in separation and that doesn't work with us, as much as I hate to say it. So, there may be forces at work here driving us together, but they are not necessarily compow-related," Draco argued against.

Hermione still looked downcast and sceptical.

Draco had a snarl on his tongue, telling her to just face the music, to admit to her feelings, for Merlin's sake, and get on with it. But how was Granger going to trust him if he kept ripping her head off, telling her how stupid he thought she was behaving when she denied the facts, when she refused to see the whole picture? He was growing tired off her denial, though, and so he just snarled without words in frustration. He was going to date her, because he knew that he needed her close to him. Everything else remained to be seen. He didn't worry about any "feelings" because they didn't matter to him. He had been ready to marry a woman whom he didn't love, for Merlin's sake; and live with her and shag her for the rest of his life.

But for Granger, it was different. If she hadn't been sure of her feelings, he could have given her more time to find clarity, but she felt them and denied they were real. It was a head thing. Typical Granger, being strong headed. What would make her see the facts? He quickly went through a list of things in his mind that he knew Granger liked. A List. Of course. He in- and exhaled once, and continued more benignantly.

"Okay, you like making lists to sort your mind, right? Let's make a list of what speaks for us being together and what speaks against, alright? So, that you can see that it is possible without being forced; even though I am who I am. I go first." He thought for a second and then said: "I can't deny that working our magic is exciting." He looked at the bushy-haired woman in his arms expectantly.

She still looked sceptical but gave it a shot. "I enjoy your quick-on-the-feet thinking."

Draco raised an eyebrow appreciatively and listed: "I like that your magical power is equal to mine."

Hermione smiled at that and said: "I like that you are likely as well-read as I am."

Draco smiled back and teased: "Likely more. You only had the Hogwarts library at your disposal since you were eleven. I've been reading magical and other books since I was five. I'll show you the Malfoy library on occasion."

Hermione's smile broadened when she said: "I'd like that."

He looked at her smiling mouth and replied: "It's a deal, then. Alright, I like your smell of roses."

"I like your smell." She relaxed into his arms.

"I like the way you respond to me, sexually. How you wrap your legs around me and pull me in." Draco Malfoy was able to say such things without blushing.

Hermione blushed profoundly, on the other hand, and looked down to the opening of his shirt. "Erm, I enjoy the sex, period."

Draco raised an eyebrow again. "Really. And what about it do you enjoy most?"

Hermione blushed even more. "I don't think I can pinpoint that to one particular thing."

"Say more than one thing, then," Draco pressed, smirking.

"Well," she turned deep-red, "I like how good it feels when you pleasure me. And I like how you enjoy it, too. And I like how relaxed I am afterward. And…" She paused, thinking, with a permanent beet-red face, hiding her face in her forward falling hair.

"Aaand?" Draco enticed cheekily, nudging her forehead with his nose.

Hermione looked further down and mumbled. "And I like how you feel in me."

Draco chuckled. She wasn't the only one who liked that particular feeling if all the previous girls' moans were anything to go by. But it so happened that he liked the same things that she liked, and he wasn't going to embarrass her by mentioning the girls he had shagged before her. Because the air felt wrong when she wasn't content. And he was so finished with other girls. Why would he go looking for an unknown thrill when he had the perfect combination within his reach?

He kissed her forehead instead and rubbed her upper arms. "I do, too," he said. "I like how it feels to be in you. And I like how you kiss me, and how it shoots right through to my groin when you do that little bite thingy that you do and that lick on the inside of my lips."

Hermione was still a little flushed but looked up surprised. "You do? It does? I love doing that and I never had much success with it."

That made Draco irritated and his perfectly content face turned into a scowl. Here he had abstained from mentioning other woman to Granger's face, and she…. "Well, it's their loss, and I don't want to hear names. What about anything against us?"

Hermione's face turned into a frown immediately, and all the blush went from her face when she paled. "Our history."

Draco added: "Our friends."

Hermione said: "Your family."

Draco shook his head but then said: "Society."

"Why did you shake your head?" Hermione wanted to know.

Draco inhaled and explained: "Because "my family" is not quite right. My mother told me very clearly that she would support whatever choice I made. And she mentioned your name repeatedly. Not as a choice for a wife, but close enough in conversation that I should have noticed it before. She definitely mentioned that she would support me should I choose not to marry a pureblood. So, when you say "my family", I believe we are talking about my father, and he is currently locked up."

"That doesn't mean he won't have any influence anymore," Hermione said sadly. "But what else is there against us besides forces outside our twosome?"

Draco hesitated for a moment, thinking, and stroked his thumb over her lips. Then, he came to a decision and spoke very measured, reflecting his own uncertainty. "Listen, Granger, and I'm only going to say this once, so pay attention. I am certain that we can find lots and lots of forces against us. But you have to know that, although we shagged more times than you can count on one hand in the last 24 hours, the most important part of that was to be in you. Not for the stimulation and climaxes, although they were earth shattering as you so aptly pointed out, but for the feeling of you taking me in; like we did the last time we shagged. I want to, I need to be as close to you as possible." He paused and squared his shoulder in discomfort over the reluctance that he had to admit again, that he wasn't as self-sufficient as he wanted the public to believe. He had always enjoyed shagging as a way to relieve stress, but he had never cared particularly for the women he had slept with. He had always cared enough to ensure they had a good time as well. But it had never gone above and beyond sexual satisfaction. That had been one of the reasons why he had agreed to marry just any appropriate woman without any attachment to her. Satisfaction and stress release was good to always have on hand. He could do that with any half-way good looking woman.

He had never wanted to fall in love, though. Love made you weak. Love gave other people a hold over you because you wanted to protect the people you loved. Voldemort would have never been able to force him to do anything if he hadn't loved his mother the way he did. She was his mother, for fuck's sake. To admit to himself, and to Granger now, that she was of some importance to him made his stomach squirm. In for a penny, in for a pound, though. He might as well get the whole thing out, while he was at it.

"The fact that I'm still here after more than a day, that I stayed the whole night and I have no intention to get up and leave, says a lot about this situation being different. It is very unusual for me. Normally, I get the hell out as soon as I'm done. With you, I am content where I am. But if you could open your chest and let me crawl inside and close it like a blanket over me again, that would be ideal."

He drifted off and paused. Then he seemed to remember who he was and snarled the rest. "And I don't mean that I want to crawl back into a mother's womb or that I need your protection from the bad world out there. I am rather confident in my ability to protect myself and I most definitely do not want to turn back into a slobbering, wailing infant." He paused again to give Hermione the opportunity to process his words. "I want to enclose you and take you in as well, make you a part of me," he added as an afterthought.

After a minute of staring at him, shocked over the thought that he wished he could be taken or take her physically in and how that negated all previous notions of disgust over blood issues, she shook her head sadly. "I still don't see how that is genuinely you and not the compow. Especially with regards to who you are and who I am. The Draco Malfoy that I knew would have never done that."

"Granger," he groaned. "Merlin, why don't you want to believe that we have feelings that are new, but real?"

"Because they are so contrary to what we ever felt before?" Hermione answered snappishly.

Draco exhaled through the nose and swiped his hand down the bridge of his nose twice. "Hermione," he continued calmly, "for the last time, I am drawn to you. I feel drawn to you. All my thoughts are drawn to you. We match. Our being together is explosively arousing and exciting. How would that be the doing from the compow, for Merlin's sake?"

"Well, why did the compow push me to sleep with you again and break your marriage bond? It wants us to be together, and I don't know why." Hermione sounded dejected.

Draco sounded tired, fighting an uphill battle, and so he resigned himself to the means he knew would shut her up best: "Granger, I'm going to snog you good, now, and when you feel all dizzy and breathless, I'll ask you again if you feel the compow did that, alright?"

"But what …," was as far as Hermione got because Draco pressed his lips onto hers and dug one hand into her hair to hold her head close to his and the other hand on her bottom to pull her flush against him. And after only a moment of hesitation, Hermione went with it because it felt so good. Pulling herself against his lean body, breathing in his clean smell that she liked so much, she just went with the sensation of his lips pulling hers, of him moulding his mouth to hers and his tongue stroking over her lips in a way that made her shoelaces stand up and the delicious feeling of sinking right into it. And even her brain got caught in the moment and sighed, 'He's right, this is it. It can't get much better than this. I want this feeling of surrender, of wanting to be close, of mind-boggling desire. I will enjoy it and take what I can out of the time that I have with him. I will see if he will catch me each and every time. If not, I am a strong, magically powerful young woman; I'm able to catch my own fall if it comes to that. I can pick up the pieces later. …'

This time, Hermione was lost in her thoughts and didn't realize immediately when Draco had stopped kissing her. Her eyes snapped open when she missed the movement of his lips and looked into his piercing grey eyes, clear as a winter morning.

"Well?" he asked.

"Yes," she breathed, feeling the smile spread and light her face.

"Yes," he said with emphasis, pulled her back and kissed her again.

.

_A/N: Awwwww (sigh)_

.

Their second morning together started out pretty much as the previous morning together. The only difference was that this time, Hermione woke before Draco and that she went to explore his body, and not the other way round. After she had ridden him to completion, he had rolled her over on her back and kissed her fiercely for ten minutes straight until they panted like they had just run ten kilometres and were both ready for a second round. After that they had gone to take a shower (separately, just in case, to much amusement) and dressed.

They took their breakfast in the kitchen. Deezy had faithfully supplied them with meals for the remainder of the previous day and they came to rely on the replenishment while exploring how well their bodies fit together in a multitude of ways. The kitchen was safe enough for now; they hadn't been in it since the last interlude there, except to catch drinks, and they didn't trust the combination of food and the bed again at the moment. It provided too much distraction from the actual eating and they needed their strength. Plus, Hermione's brain was plagued by thoughts that needed to be addressed.

Chewing on a piece of apple, Draco looked over at the witch of his choosing who sipped slowly on her mug of tea across from him, glancing off into the distance. He could see her brain waves turning in her head through her erratically moving eyes.

"Spit it out, Granger."

"Hm?" she mused.

"Whatever's going on in your big head." He motioned with his hand to her bushy hair. She raised a hand and smoothed it down over it. Then she looked down to her tea and he saw her gather her thoughts. He waited patiently, knowing that she would share it when she was ready.

Finally she said: "I have been thinking about the compow breaking spells again. If it really only breaks unbreakable spells and why it would be doing that."

Draco took the thought up: "And what did you find?"

Hermione still pondered, looking off to the side. "Nothing really. I only wondered, if it is breaking spells, what that has to do with us. Does it have a purpose? What good would it do to simply dissolve spells? Even unbreakable spells."

Draco raised an eyebrow: "Does it need a purpose? Isn't it good enough that we can protect ourselves against unwanted spells?"

Hermione stroked her lower lip with her fingertips and didn't reply immediately. Draco didn't mind. He could see her cogs and wheels turning. "It can't be about protection for us. It does that only when we are together. One of us alone wouldn't be able to use the compow. So, only together would we be able to protect ourselves, and that makes no sense because together we are already four times as strong as normal wizards or witches. So, it has to be something that only we two together are able to do. And its manifestation is supposed to come with something from both of us. Powerful union," she mumbled. "A shield to protect the innocent…"

"What was that?" Draco barked.

She focused on him, alarmed by his sudden harshness. "I had a dream, weeks ago, right after you got engaged. It was about a young warrior and a priestess and their ill-fated union. He was …"

"A Dragon warrior, named Arion, and her name was Janna," Draco interrupted, feeling cold run down his spine. Had she had the same dream? Merlin, what did that mean?

"Yes." Hermione was stunned. "How..?"

"I had a similar dream. Two nights before the engagement reception," he growled, trying to remember rapidly what he had seen in the weird dream that he had discarded quickly. Oh, this was getting better and better, for fuck's sake.

"Yes," Hermione whispered.

"Well, tell me. It was weird, with the man being murdered and I didn't give it a second thought," he said through clenched teeth.

She frowned and got up. "Where are you going?" he asked startled at her sudden movement.

She moved towards the living room. "I made some notes when I had the dream. I'm going to get them." He nodded and was too stunned to make a snide remark on the fact that Granger had taken notes as in school. Well, this time it would definitely help.

When she came back, she fell back on her chair and said: "Okay, let's go through it step by step." He nodded again in dazed agreement.

She nodded back. "First, there were two people: a young man in blue robes and a young woman in red robes."

"Yes," Draco agreed wearily. "Blue for me, red for you. His eyes were like mine, her eyes were like yours."

"Yes," Hermione acceded relieved. It was good that he concurred so easily. It meant she had thought in the right direction. She had done enough mistakes, recently. "That's what I thought, too."

"Why Janna?" Malfoy asked.

Hermione shrugged. "My second name is Jean, after my mother. I felt it was close enough."

"And my third name is Arion."

She smiled. "So I've heard."

He smirked back. They were both reminiscing for a minute when she had called his name: the breaking of the marriage bond. Then Hermione shook herself and continued.

"The warrior asked for the priestess' blessing because he needed to go away, and she clarified that he indeed needed to go because he had sinned against society with his arrogance by not wanting to marry the woman his clan had chosen for him."

"Yes, I remember. At the time of the dream I thought, stupid wanker, I was going to do the right thing and marry the right woman, the one I was supposed to marry, and not die for my sins," Draco said quietly. He sagged down to the table and put his head on his hands. Even as a reminder, it hurt to think about what it had done to him, when he had almost lost his connection to Granger over his own stupidity. And arrogance. Stupid wanker, indeed.

"Draco, I think it's clear from the dream that it wouldn't have been the right solution." Hermione's voice was very quiet.

Draco was still captured by his unsavoury memory, but he came up again from the table top and asked hoarsely: "How so?"

"Well, for one, in the dream, they loved each other, and for that reason he didn't want to marry his designated woman. They both suffered that they couldn't simply do it for some society rules. And two, they both loose in the end, so what happened can't have been right for the two people in the dream, ergo, us. He dies, and she is paralysed after his departure, and so shocked over his death that she faints. Like I was paralysed when you got engaged," she finished mumbling.

"Do you mean they would have lived happily ever after had they defied all society rules and eloped?" Draco asked sceptically.

Hermione smiled thinly. "At least, they would have had the opportunity to live happily. The way it played out in the dream, they had nothing."

Draco raised his eyebrows in doubt. "But they would have had to give up everything they knew and all connections to their previous life. That wouldn't have made them happy at all."

"But they would have had each other. Love defies everything. That's what Dumbledore tried to tell Harry. People who know love can defy the darkness because they know the light. They know the difference. People who never experienced how it is to love and be loved cannot imagine the power of love, and so they underestimate it. They underestimate that unconditional love creates a power that can grow and extrapolate other powers. And that is exactly opposite to the willingness to gain power for the powers sake, the way Voldemort has done. When you lose that kind of power, power for power's sake, you have nothing, only emptiness. But when you lose extra power grown from love, then at least you still have the love and can start over again, create something new. The way Janna and Arion tried to obey the rules or tried to avoid them, they had nothing. Their entire power was zapped away from them. I believe that was the message for us. We would lose the power given to us, if we forced each other to play by the old rules. If we separated because it was what we would have done because of our history, we would have been unable to use our compow and felt the emptiness." Hermione paused for a moment, lost in her own discourse and what it meant for them. Then she added thoughtfully: "And he was ready to give up everything and elope with her. She was the one who wanted to stay and continue in her role society had assigned to her."

"Yes, that's true." 'See, Granger, it's your fault. If you had accepted my proposition, we would have been okay right away,' Draco's thoughts habitually kicked against the inside of his skull in old Malfoy fashion. He didn't want to think about this whole love crap Granger had blurted out. He still thought love made you weaker, not stronger, because it made you vulnerable. But he did his best to beat the thoughts down. 'But I'm sure you had good reasons,' he finished for himself and sat up in his seat. His thoughts weren't that easily quieted, though.

"And there was something else to society rules that struck me as odd. They played a pivotal role, society rules. There were social standings and marriage rules and callings and sins against it," Hermione deliberated.

"What about it?" he snarled, still trying to still his thoughts about all of this being Granger's fault. It wouldn't help at all if he blurted that out to her.

She continued, frowning, reacting to his snarl but unaware of his struggles: "Well, for one, there were the switched social standings. In the dream, the priestess was on higher social standing, and only after her calling. Before her calling, they were equal; as we are equal in magic. In our world, though, you are of higher social standing with your purebloodedness and estates."

That distracted him enough, because he disagreed. "In theory, that is correct but I think in the public eye, it changed recently with Potter saving our world from the monster. And since you helped him, you will become a legend, just like he is already. Every child in generations to come will know your name, and your social standing can't get much higher. Whereas, I will have to work tremendously to regain the respect that the Malfoys once held." Certain bitterness had sneaked into his voice with the last sentence. Life wasn't fair.

Hermione breathed deeply. "I take it from the fact that you know exactly what I am talking about, that we agree we had the same dream?"

He nodded reluctantly. She went on: "Then it must have been really important for us to know what it means."

"I agree," Draco snarled. His struggle had been tiring. "Keep talking about it."

Hermione nodded and continued: "So, you are saying that social standings can change, dependent on the circumstances. That on one dimension, you can be higher than I and on other dimensions, I can be higher than you. I thought of that, it's in my notes, but I couldn't for the world imagine on what dimension I would be higher than you, society-wise."

"Just look at the way they look at me suspiciously when I walk by, and how they cheer at you, and you get an idea," Draco said wearily.

"Oh, and it couldn't have to do with the way you usually snarl or sneer at each and every person passing you, could it? Who likes being snarled at, I ask you." She snickered.

He smirked against his will. "Yeah, well, that may be one reason. But look at it, you are the lauded war heroine and I am Malfoy, the turncoat. This is how people look at us."

Hermione considered him: "Do you really think that? I am pretty sure that your pureblood elite group still looks at Harry and me as if we have done something wrong by defeating Voldemort. Of course, there are thousands of people who rejoice with us, but there are many others who don't," Hermione argued. She left Ron out of her list of Voldemort defeaters, but Malfoy was smart enough not to ask for the reason why. Because Ronald Weasley as the third in the trio would become a legend as well, whether they wanted to or not. But he didn't want to bring it up. It would upset Hermione if he pointed that out, he figured. And he didn't like to make her upset. It felt wrong.

"Just proves the point, doesn't it?" he said instead. "How society rules differ and can change? It's about what people have in their heads and how they cling to their believes. I understood that when my doubts about the whole Voldemort thing became too overwhelming. I just couldn't believe anymore what he preached. But all the other followers kept following. And I know that my father is definitely smart enough to see through Voldemort's shite. But he didn't want to. It served him better if he stuck to it. Our issues come from the same thing, actually." Draco motioned with his hand back and forth between Hermione and himself, and then lowered his head and put it in his hands and eyed the table top as if he could find his next words written there.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked breathlessly.

"Well, you are not "the mudblood" to me anymore." He peered up and spoke quickly when he saw her wincing at his use of the old term of abuse. "You haven't been for a long time, now. But we are still struggling with our preconceived notions of each other. You in particular."

Hermione was aghast. "I do?"

Draco's forehead was set and he spoke sharply: "Yes, you. I panicked when you were hit. I was afraid that I could lose you, forever, my connection to …, well, my connection to you. I carried you all the way to St. Mungo's. I fought with the healers for the right to stay. Luckily, Potter backed me up or I'm sure they would have removed me from your room. And I would have thrown a fit. I stayed with you for three days until you awoke, for all the world to see, even though I was an engaged man and I knew it could cause a scandal of epic proportions." The way he said it sounded like an accusation. How could she make him sit by her side and make him cause a scandal with him in the middle, I ask you? Honestly. Hermione would have laughed over the ridiculousness of it, had she not been so flustered and eager to listen to him continue. "I was desperate while I sat over you, imagining what would happen to me if you never woke up again. I moved the compow to wake you up, as soon as I grasped what I could possibly do to save you. I brought you home and I haven't left yet. And you still believe that we are, that I am being magically forced and that I will go back to the old Draco when the magic stops. You changed my world in sixth year, and you still don't realize what you've done and how it changed me," he snarled the last sentence.

Hermione stared at him.

He continued scowling. "I haven't admitted any deep feelings for you, true. But you wouldn't believe it anyway. You'd think I'm making fun of you. My parents, well, my father will go into conniptions when he finds out that I feel anything for you but disdain. But there is nothing for it. Judged by the way, how possessive and animalistic I reacted when you talked to Theo Nott, it's pretty clear that our bodies at least know exactly where they want to be. It's just our heads that have not quite grasped the unlikelihood of us together. Yours even more than mine, but then, your head needs to catch up the three days you were out. I had time to deliberate our situation. I had nothing else to do, sitting in the hospital, waiting for you to wake up," Draco conceded.

There is was again. Draco struggled and she felt compelled to do something. Hermione got up, went over and straddled his lap on the kitchen chair, as they had done before. He embraced her immediately, giving her hold and support and pulled her close to his front. He snuggled his face into her throat, taking deep breaths, and she put her cheek on his head.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his hair. It smelled the same way as his cologne, leather and citrus. "I'm not there yet. I am just starting to see that there is joy to be had together with you. I need more time."

"Don't take too long to figure it out," he spoke into her throat. "I'm a Malfoy, I don't wait for anybody. Although, I have some practice in waiting. If you let me wait in this exact position, I can wait a little longer, comfortably. Or maybe in your bed. Crookshanks and Gwenny can keep me company. If you stop by every once in a while; like two, three times a day."

She giggled. His lips tickled on her throat. But the fact that Draco Malfoy of all people told her, he would wait for her to make up her mind (however reluctantly), made her immensely happy. And there was something in the air that made her want to laugh.

"So, when Arion said the girl he was supposed to marry did not own his heart, but that the priestess should know who did, what did he mean exactly?" Hermione asked jokingly.

Draco looked up, and the way he looked at her made her stomach tingle. His grey eyes captured hers and she couldn't have escaped, even if she had wanted to. He said sternly: "Exactly what he said: that the priestess should indeed know who owns his heart. And that she pushes excuses if she denies him or pretends she doesn't know."

Hermione startled. "Excuses. Ginny said I should stop finding excuses not to be with you. She gave me quite a dressing down after you got engaged and I was so… ." She trailed off.

"You were so what?" Draco Malfoy questioned with narrowed eyes.

She couldn't look at him. "I was blue. I missed the energizing work with the compow. It was so quiet without it; I had no energy for anything. I ate and slept on autopilot, only when it was absolutely necessary, and Ginny and Luna took me out to lunch one day to get something nutritious in me. And then the whole world lit up again when you came back for the last mission. Even though you misunderstood my embarrassment to see you, it felt good to have the compow whole again."

"What were you embarrassed about? I thought you didn't want to see me anymore." He frowned.

"Why would I not have wanted to see you anymore?" Hermione was confused when she focused back on the young man whose lap she was sitting on.

"Well, in your mind, you likely had good reasons to rej…, to not take my proposition." Draco caught himself and scowled. It wouldn't be good to argue again over whether she had rejected him or not. "And I didn't give you any opportunity to explain your reasoning. Every time the topic came up and you balked, I showed my disgust over your attitude. 'Cause that's what I do, and you know it. But I'm certain that it didn't help you to think things through. And that's what you do. Astoria actually pointed it out to me, that thinking things through is your thing. I should have known after six years at school together, if even a girl who went to Beauxbaton knows that. I thought you didn't want to see me anymore because I put too much pressure on you, trying to work something out that you didn't want. And it is just human nature not to want to deal with something you don't want to face," he finished scowling.

"I was afraid, though," Hermione admitted quietly. "I couldn't imagine for the world that you actually wanted to date me. I still am afraid that I am making a mistake, when I open myself up to you. How can I know that you won't tire of me, laugh at me and dump me spectacularly?"

"Believe me, I know what you mean," Draco pressed through a clenched jaw. He rested his forehead against her neck and breathed onto her décolleté. He spoke into her neck in a rather un-malfoyish way: "It came to me while watching you in the hospital. When I thought about how miserable I had been without you and how it would become if you never woke up again, it came to me that I never gave you a reason to think I could appreciate you. But I'm trying here. We'll date and see where it gets us. We'll give our heads some time to process our situation. I'll stay until we figured this whole compow thing out, at the very least. And you know that can take another few years. That much I can promise you. Beyond that, I don't know what's going to happen."

Hermione looked very sad when she thought to the end. "But can we really be together? Will our world accept that? Won't it be immensely difficult?" Will you not turn away from me when your friends shun you for being with a muggleborn, beyond working with the compow, her sad eyes asked.

He shrugged uncomfortably and raised his head to look off into the distance. "Just difficult. Not impossible, though. And not forbidden, like in the dream. Frowned upon perhaps, but we don't live in the middle ages anymore, as Astoria recently pointed out. She had actually quite some insight, come to think of it." He drifted off. The growl from the witch on his lap brought him back to the present. He looked into her angry face and smirked at Granger's renewed reaction when he spoke about another woman who was connected to him. There was hope after all. Perhaps Granger's uncharacteristic possessiveness of him would drive her brain to understand eventually. "Perhaps it is time for a change. Now would certainly be a good time for changes. And society as such is so whimsical, it will come around eventually. You are Potter's best friend. If he accepts it, society will after a while," he continued, frowning. He said further: "We will be all over the Prophet at first, Malfoy and the war heroine, Granger and the turncoat, What's going on between these two, is it really just work, but once we figured out what the power of the compow is, we may actually be able to do something with it and people will get used to seeing us together." He captured her gaze, trying to decipher her thoughts.

"In the end, people will have better things to do. And although the Malfoy's are not in best standing at the moment, we've been fairly free to do what we please for centuries. I'm sure there are incidences in the past where the Malfoy heir didn't care about the blood status of his bride. The blood issue isn't that old. You know about the difficulties we would run into if we continued trying to conserve blood purity, which is that we will sterilise ourselves as a people. Therefore, it is once more completely outdated," he added the last sentence to assuage her fears about her muggleborn status, which was clearly visible in her eyes.

"What about your friends?" she spoke her thoughts out loud.

He frowned and looked down at the opening of her shirt, where the swell of her breasts was just visible. "I actually had a little epiphany while I was sitting at your hospital bed. Goyle came to visit, as you know, and tipped me off about the spell on you. Naturally, I was astounded he came to visit. And even though he claimed he visited me, not you, he supported me. He said that the mudblood crap was over, and if I was happy he would be okay with us together. Did you know that he can talk?" he finished with a smile.

Hermione smiled back and closed her shirt opening with one hand holding it, to prevent him from ogling her breasts. "Not from the evidence he gave, no, but I figured that he can talk. Are you going to tell me, he did his NEWTs as well?"

Draco grinned. It felt so good that she knew what he was going to say next. He hated explaining himself to no end. His Slytherin friends understood him the same way, but with the fellow Slytherins you always had to watch what you say, lest they turned it against you. With Slytherins there was no 'un-saying' something. But they weren't offended when he said something spiteful. With Hermione on the other hand, he had to watch that he didn't say anything hurtful. When something slipped out, however, he could rectify. Nonetheless, he had started to put some effort into thinking things over before he said them, so that he didn't say too many hurtful things to her. It made his head hurt a little, but that was preferable to watching her wince. He liked the way her warm eyes received him and warmed him and captured him. That connection broke every time he said something hurtful to her. And he didn't like that one bit.

"Yes, that's exactly what I was going to tell you next."

"Well, congratulations to Goyle," she grinned. "I'm glad. He didn't give me much opportunity to put any esteem in him, but I am more than willing to learn, if he gave me the chance."

Malfoy grinned with her. He couldn't wait to put Goyle and Granger together and see how they would figure out talking to each other. "Blaise and Pansy will be okay with us dating. They already know that our work together is intense and that we got companionable over it. And they saw me sitting over you at St. Mungo's. They probably made up their own mind as for the reason. They are my friends, they'll tease, but they won't give me a hard time. They'll sit back and observe."

Hearing him talk about the fact that his closest friends were not going to slight him for associating with her, and that they indeed had a chance to be seen together in public without sanctions, Hermione felt the urge to kiss him, her … lover? Too sexual. Boyfriend? Too lame. Man in her life? Hrmph. It was still too fresh to classify. But she wanted to be closer. Unfortunately, she was aware of the fact that, as things stood with them, it would likely lead to more snogging and more other activities, and they did have some more things to go through. She sighed and leaned back against the table, wondering how on earth she would be able to get up and walk back to her own chair, when she sat so comfortably on his strong thighs.

Draco picked up her body language and commented on it. "Couldn't we sit on the couch? It would be more comfortable," he whined.

"Can you promise that we continue talking and don't get into other activities?" She sighed again.

Draco sighed as well and shook his head. "No, I can't." A shag would be good just about now. Looking at her breasts standing out from her leaning back against the table, he put his hands on her waist and moved his thumbs over the sides over her stomach. He felt her muscles contracting under his digits.

"Then we need to stay in the kitchen and I should best return to my chair, because we won't be able to talk when you can't abstain from touching me." She sighed for the third time.

He smirked. "Sigh one more time like that and I'll force us to take a break." Sigh, please, sigh again, he thought to himself.

She snickered. "Good to know. In case I need a forced break."

He smirk turned into a grin. "What else did you want to talk about?"

She made an impatient movement with her head and shoulders. "The dream and the compow. We should figure out what it means. It can't be just about our feelings because they have nothing to do with the compow, right? At least, that's what you keep telling me. But our coming together might have. What kind of "shield" would we create? And what does that have to do with us? Tarnished soul and goodness. We should figure that out, don't you think?"

He looked a little exasperated. "Yes, I agree, but why do we have to figure all of that out right now? Can't we just explore a little more of the relationship aspect?"

Now she looked really impatient. "Because there is a cause behind all this, and I am fairly certain that it will lead to the purpose of the compow. And I want to know. I hate not knowing something." With her last sentence, she smashed her hand on the table with a slap.

"I felt driven into sleeping with you again and I tried to resist, but I couldn't. And then, when we both climaxed, the compow imploded on us. And it's driving me around the bent that I don't know what happened. It resolved an unbreakable marriage bond, for crying out loud, and I have no idea why and how. And I want to know."

She went on: "And what if we can't control it anymore at one point? It already works a lot on its own intent, like all this spell breaking; what if we can't figure it out in time and it goes off on its own?"

He shook his head. He wasn't going to get anything anytime soon, he just knew it. Granger was in one of her working moods. "It never worked on its own, Hermione. How many times do I have to say it? One of us always wanted something done, and then it acted on our wish. We are still the masters of it."

"How can you say that, when we don't even know what's to master with it, except spell breaking?" she cried out.

Draco Malfoy was irritated again. Why was this slim witch able to irritate him so much? He wanted another shag, that would relax him. And he was becoming addicted to Granger's warmth. It had been a few hours already since their last interlude. Perhaps if he sped it up a bit…? "Okay, Granger, back to the information gathering. What else was there in the dream?"

"Something about their union being right. Arion said it was to be a powerful union when Janna refused and that they could have created a powerful shield to protect the innocent."

"With his tainted soul and her inherent goodness, I remember," he added.

"Tarnished, not tainted," Hermione qualified.

"No, he actually said maculate, that's as good as tainted," Draco corrected.

"What is that even supposed to mean, a maculate soul?" she exclaimed exasperated.

He frowned. "You saved me from my soul meltdown that night in the classroom, and you've dealt with Voldemort splitting his soul through acts of violence. How can you not know?"

Hermione looked blank. It was a rare sight, to be sure.

Draco snorted. "Granger, are you so whole, that you don't know what it is to lose your soul?" When it still didn't seem to click in her eyes, he continued impatiently. "You've seen the Dark Mark, well, its imprint on my magic. You've felt how it sucks magic and energy. You've seen how haggard they become after years of carrying the thing. It sucks magical energy; life energy. It draws on what's whole in you. And in that, it taints everything pure, like a child's soul. He forced me to commit the ultimate deed, to take another human's life, under threat of killing my mother should I not succeed; he made me responsible for ending another person's life, either way. Don't you think that leaves marks in a soul? That it destroys parts of it, if not the whole? Why do you think you couldn't leave me alone that night? Even though I barked at you repeatedly to just go?"

Hermione still didn't seem to comprehend.

Draco snarled. How could Granger be so thick? "Could it be that in the goodness of your heart you couldn't leave a fellow student who sobbed like his heart had been ripped out? Or his soul?"

And then it clicked in Hermione's eyes.

She looked shocked, though, and bent forward again to take his head and shoulders in her arms.

"Is it still?" she inquired quietly.

"Well, I feel whole when you hold me like this, but I wouldn't consider my soul the most stellar one," Draco mumbled into her chest.

She glanced at him thoughtfully. "Do you think it can heal?"

He smirked. "Under your care, most likely. But it will take some time. And a lot of care. You could start by stroking over my head." Hermione dug her hands in his hair and nimbly scraped and massaged his scalp. Her gaze drifted off over his head though and looking up at her, enjoying what she did, he could see that she was nowhere near actually but far, far away in her thoughts. When Hermione Granger had started a string of thoughts, nothing would stop her from finishing it. Well, as far as he knew. But there were certain techniques that they were just yet discovering with each other, and he hadn't applied them yet to distract her. It was worth a trial.

He closed his arms tighter around her waist and hips and dove his hands under her shirt, feeling the soft skin on her back. Stroking, he pushed her shirt higher and higher with his thumbs hooked under the hem, until he had exposed her firm stomach. He bent forward and nipped with his lips on her taut skin, licking here, nipping there, scraping his teeth over parts. All the while, she continued to massage his scalp absently. He was enjoying her ministrations immensely, but he wanted to elicit a reaction from her none the less. When he had plastered her stomach with nips and kisses and licks and she still didn't look at him, he took the next step, put his mouth over her left breast and bit softly and through the shirt, where her nipple would be. This got her attention.

"Ow. Malfoy, what are you doing?" she asked nonplussed, looking down on his blond head.

"Distracting you?" he mumbled through his lips on her breast.

"And why would you want to distract me? I might have developed a soul-healing spell in my head, which I now forgot because you distracted me." She frowned.

He smirked up at her. "I have utter confidence in your ability to recall everything that you ever thought up in your head. Plus, as I said, some tender loving care would do the trick as well. Do you think you can spare some time for my care?"

She smiled back. "And what would you have me do?"

"Oh, you started out quite nicely with the massage of my head, but you could pay some attention to it? I don't like being ignored and handled. While you are at it, you could pay some attention to some other body parts as well. There is one down here that is craving attention." He looked down to his crotch and back up to her.

Hermione grinned while raising one eyebrow. "How about I pay some attention to your face and leave the one down there for later?"

His face turned into a look of mock horror. "What, you want to leave it to its own devices? For how long? You obviously have no idea what it can do when left to its own."

She moved her head closer to his and aligned her lips over his. "I can't wait to find out what it is up to when left to its own devices. Later. For now, there is a nice pair up here that I'd like to reacquaint with." She kissed him softly, but thoroughly. At first, he simply accepted her lips, but more and more, he pushed back against hers. When they started to breathe heavily from the intensity of their kissing, he took her one hand and put it over his taut crotch. Hermione unlatched her lips in shock.

"Draco Arion Malfoy, didn't I say later?"

He let his eyes widen. "Uh-oh, she said my full name again. Well, almost. I have another name. But don't use it, unless you are really mad at me," he smirked.

She growled. "I don't intend to ever use your full name, Ladon, so you better shape up."

He smirked some more. "You did once." He paused and his face fell a bit. "Well, you thought you did. And apparently it was enough," he contemplated, looking her way thoughtfully.

Hermione groaned, remembering. "The compow broke the bond when I used your full name. The compow was triggered when I called you by your full name."

Draco thought back to their first sex right after she had gotten home from the hospital. Something wasn't quite right. "No, Hermione, think back. What did you do, what did you feel, what did you say?"

She sighed. She didn't like talking about sex. "Well, you brought me to a first climax quickly and snug in while I was still coming."

He grinned absently. "Merlin, that felt good. But there was something coiling in me, like my body was preparing for an enormous jump."

"You had that, too?" Hermione asked surprised. "Like a panther lining up for a jump."

"Yes, like a spring being wound up," he concurred. "And I was in tremors like in a fever, and I don't think it had anything to do with the way it felt so good in you."

"You moved like you were only half there and your eyes were glazed over. And when I saw your loneliness in them I wondered if I could be the woman you would stay with," Hermione pondered.

"Loneliness?" Draco asked, frowning.

"Yes, you looked so hungry for connection, so … longing for a place to rest, to stay, to feel safe in. And I wanted to be the one person you could have that with, well, in that moment." She lowered her eyes. What had she been thinking to admit these things to Draco Malfoy, of all people? And now he looked at her the way he had sneered while at school. It made her nervous and reminded her of her fear that he would fall back into his old Malfoy behaviour and ridicule her for believing that he could feel anything for her.

"And that's when you said you would have me," Draco said in a monotone voice, deep in thought.

"Yes," Hermione confirmed with trepidation.

"And told me to make you mine." His face was stone cold.

"Yes," she whispered, afraid that he was offended, now that she had said he had been lonely. But he took her face in his hands and captured her eyes with his.

"That's when the bond broke. That exact moment. I remember it. Hermione, you accepted me as yours and gave yourself over to me, and that was when the bond broke. Why didn't I see it before?" Draco was entirely astonished over his previous lack of insight.

Hermione was relieved that he was not offended but unsure of his reaction. And she didn't quite understand why her acceptance of him would have such an impact.

"Why would that be so crucial, my acceptance of you?" she asked puzzled.

Draco looked at her intensely. He saw her when he looked that way. Not only noticed her presence but really saw her. She liked that intense look, it made her stomach tingle.

"I imagine that with our connection through the compow, your acceptance of me overrode my bond with Astoria." He held her gaze and it took a second for Hermione to process his words.

"Oh my god," she gasped at the enormity of the magical power she was supposedly holding.

"I don't know who this God-person is that is so frequently called upon by muggles but if he or she is held in high esteem, I'd say, hell yeah." His face hadn't changed but she could see by the glimmer in his eyes that he had recovered from the shock of the potential magnitude of their mutual power.

Hermione looked at him for a moment, in which she was entirely unsure of how to react, and then she giggled because she felt giddy. "Draco, that made no sense whatsoever."

"Well, it made you laugh, that makes good sense to me." He smirked.

"Please, be serious." She tried to get a grip of her state of mind, and put her hands on her head to massage her temples. "Are you telling me that the compow broke your betrothal bond because it is, how to say this, of a higher order?"

"I don't know if it's of a "higher order", but with its ability to break spells, well, we assume at least some spells if not all, it took care of the bond. I definitely wanted it gone, and with your acceptance you expressed that you didn't want me bound to another woman, and so it broke, on our demand, this particular spell. See? I told you, we were the masters." He looked smug.

Hermione looked sceptical. "It sounds very logical, Draco, but I don't know if that's all really. What about the fact that it pushed me to sleep with you, bringing me in a situation where I had to accept you? A powerful union. The compow itself wanted to enable the powerful union between us," Hermione followed up breathlessly. "I knew I was being pushed."

Draco's gaze pierced her. "Do you still believe that?" he growled. "The compow is part of our magic, the magic that we guide. You wouldn't think that your regular magic regulates you, yet you give the compow a power it doesn't have. Power over you. Stop doing that."

"But it does have power over me, over us. I know what I felt. I didn't want to sleep with you because you were still engaged, but I couldn't resist. I felt that something else was taking control."

His gaze skewered her. It made her throat go dry when he looked at her as if he could see right through to her pelvis and see how it aroused her. It reminded her of the time when he literally had impaled her, right in her foyer, and made her explode in fireworks. "Control like you were imperiused? That can't be right, because I remember distinctly that you gave up your resistance at one point. The time when you took your legs away and I sank down on you and it shot right into my prick."

"Well, I gave up my resistance because I felt that I couldn't resist. Your need was entirely overwhelming." Hermione scowled at him to distract from her inner turmoil.

His head came forward like a snake narrowing in on its prey, and he spoke quietly: "Oh, you bet it was. I already said I couldn't have slowed down, wanting to be in you. But that wasn't because any magic forced me. That was because I wanted you."

Hermione was flustered and her eyes widened. Her hands had somehow ended up on his shoulders again, and he was so close. "You wanted to have sex with me so badly?"

Draco rolled his eyes and snorted. "Would I have sat for three days in the hospital with you if I had wanted a shag and just a shag?"

It didn't connect in her brain. "Then what?"

He looked straight in her eyes and growled in her face. "You. I wanted you. I still want you. I told you I want to be in you. I want you to take me in. Deep in you is where I feel the most complete. But it has to be you. Only you can make me feel that way, Granger. Get it in your thick head."

Hermione was dazed and confused. "But why?"

Draco snarled. "Because that's the way it is, Granger. Since when are you so thick? What do I have to do to make you understand?"

Hermione was overwhelmed and said still dazed: "Well, kissing worked the last time."

Pulling her head the last inch, Draco had his mouth on hers before she spoke the last word. "Time" went already in his mouth and was swallowed whole. And with that, time stopped and put her in a bubble outside of time, where nothing counted but the feeling of him being so close to her. Time stopped when Hermione felt Draco's burning lips on hers again, and the feeling exploded behind her eyes, and nothing mattered in that moment but the way he breathed through her mouth like she was his oxygen. It burned. The feeling of his lips burned a path through her trigeminus, up the sides of her face, where he put his hands on each side, stroking up into her hair, taking the burning feeling with him, and it sank into her cranium and met up with the residue of the explosion when he gripped fistfuls of her hair as if he wanted to part her scalp.

She exhaled forcefully and shook her head a little to get the pressure off and he understood: he let go off her hair and held her head instead, his fingers still intertwined with her locks. He pushed down on her head, though, shoving her effectively deeper into his lap where she felt the unmistakable hard length make an appearance. But only for a second did she pay attention to that appendage, because more important was the burning feeling in her brain and the searing of his frenzied, hot and smooth lips, the way they muscled their way over hers, over taking her, taking hers in as if they were trying to attach themselves inseparably to hers, and on the other hand not, because if they were inseparably attached, they wouldn't be able to nip on different parts of hers, take her upper lip between them and suck, with a slight stroke of the tongue on the underside, peg lightly on both lips together, only to eat up her lower lip right after, pulling, smoothing, sliding his lips over hers in a sensual massage. And then she felt his tongue. His tongue seared its way over the inside of her lips, intruded over the crown of her teeth to her tongue lying on the inside and stroked silkily over it. Its touch electrified her and she inhaled deeply. In shock, her tongue lifted up and joined its counterpart, savouring every little electrical shock that each contact caused her. It didn't help of course that something hard was pressing urgently against her sensitized root centre somewhere below, intensifying the shocks in her mouth. She whimpered at the combined sensations.

Her brain nudged her to do something. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled herself closer into his warmth. From behind his back, she moved her hands up into his silky hair, felt it glide through her fingers and started scraping her fingernails over his scalp, the way she knew he liked. He moaned into her mouth and lowered his hands to her shoulders and back to push her firmer against him, even though that was hardly possible.

Coloured dots started to appear behind her eyes, perhaps from lack of oxygen, pulsing in the rhythm of her heartbeat. She heard blood rushing in her ears and the sensations became entirely overwhelming. His smell satiated her nose, his taste and the feeling of his tongue took over her mouth, the warmth of his hands spread over her back and with his arms around to her sides and concentrated in her middle, falling down to her pelvis and opening up her insides, expanding, spreading out. She felt him rubbing himself on her centre, felt his heavy breathing, panting really, on her face, and heard his moans fighting with his pants for air. All these sensations were channelled into her hard-working brain, and combined with the burning that had made its way under her cranium before, they formed a lasting impression, stamping Draco Malfoy's name in bright perceptible colours spiced with taste, smell, sound and feeling indelible into her brain waves.

"It had nothing to do with the compow," her a part of her brain scoffed, accepting the branding with a shrug as if it had been a long time coming. "The compow didn't kiss you like this. And you felt lack of control in the bond-breaking shag, because that's what happens when desire overtakes you. You should learn to give into it, it's quite enjoyable to give up control every once in a while."

"Traitor," Hermione scolded back to her brain. "You were the one holding me back. I should have realized after our first shag that Draco and I simply match." She was jolted out of her silent conversation with her central nervous system when Draco pushed his engorged member deeply against her centre and moaned his arousal into her mouth. She barely came to grip with the sensation, before the colour dots exploded into bright white light on this one particular move over the apex between her legs, and it rained like a star shower over her body, feeling like thousands of tiny electric pricks when they made contact with her skin, dousing her in warmth. She felt as if she was lifted up to the heavens, and one long sigh escaped her when she felt herself sinking deeper into his embrace and permanently attached to his tongue. A second later, she was jostled when the solid body under her thighs starting moving. Her eyes snapped open to look into his dark grey orbs that were half-lidded and burnt with a fire you could easily have roasted chestnuts on.

When he saw her looking at him, he detached his lips and, panting, spoke hoarsely against her mouth: "I told you I would force a break if you sighed like that again, Granger." He finished getting up, lifting her in his arms, and still looking at her motioned with his head toward the entrance (and exit) of her kitchen. "Bed", he said and stumbled with her out into the hallway.

They didn't make it straight into the bedroom. Every few seconds, she was overcome by the impulse to feel the tiny electrical currents again that his lips on her hers induced and he had to support her against the wall because he couldn't do both, carry her and give in to her kisses that pulled his shoes off; which he actually did during one of his stops. While leaning her against the wall, he stepped onto the backs of his shoes, respectively, and slipped his feet out. He repeated the movement and pulled off the socks the same way. It took some effort to coordinate his movements such because Granger's snogging tangled his brain functions and in an eerie light around them everything seemed unreal. By golly, he had never been kissed like this in his entire life. Uninhibited and out of control, possessive, daring, innocent, desperate, ravenous, tempestuous, all rolled into one. He thought his head would explode before his pants. It would be a close race.

Every time she stopped snogging to catch her breath, he made it another few steps until she pulled his head down again and moulded her lips on his, pulling him in as if she wanted to drain a cup. On the last stretch from the bedroom door to the bed he had no opportunity to lean her against anything, and he had to lower her carefully to the floor when she was overcome by another snogging impulse. The fact that they were so securely against a solid surface led to her rolling up on him and snog him into the floor. Granger was not a heavy woman, but the ferocity of her body pressing into his made him suspect that his body would leave a permanent imprint on her floor. And it was rather hard in his back. He used the movement of pulling off her shirt (now that he had his hands free) as an opportunity to detach her lips, and bending his head backward he eyed the bed in close proximity.

"Let's make it to the bed. I don't want to end up as a bed rug on your floor," he admonished her hoarsely. She tittered but let him sit up and lift her again. With a wide stride, he stepped quickly to the bed, while Hermione worked her way up closer to his face, and placed her on it. He finished undressing her quickly between kisses, whenever they had to come up for air, and then himself, while she scooted backward toward the middle of the bed. He joined her quickly and in one smooth move, he recaptured her lips, pushed her backward into a lying position, put his forearms next to her head, aligned his cock with her entrance and pushed in. Only when he felt her tight inner walls and warmth enclosing him, when he looked into her gleaming eyes in her flushed face and her wild hair tousled over her head and when he had lowered himself down enough to feel her puffs of breath on his face and almost touched her lips, did he close his eyes and exhale.

"Gawds, Granger, one of these days you'll make me self-combust," he whispered against her lips and did one explorative stroke. She gasped and exhaled likewise, then giggled over the picture of Draco Malfoy combusting. He felt delighted over her amusement, and chuckled with her, and did another stroke that made her inhale sharply. He smirked.

"Like my cock moving in you?"

Hermione blushed, but her eyes burned fiercely into his when she answered. "You know, I do. I already told you that. For a man of your intelligence, I shouldn't have to repeat myself quite so often."

His smirk died on his face when he saw the fire in Granger's eyes; even though he had been about to laugh that Granger threw his own statement back at him. It made his throat dry to see her burning with lust.

"Tell me what you want," he whispered again. Loud noises didn't fit into this, and with his dry throat he couldn't have raised his voice above a whisper, anyway.

She kissed him and pulled his lower lip. "Just keep going," she said.

"Hard and fast or gentle and slow?" he narrowed it down, nonetheless.

"You decide. I'll tell you when to change it," she evaded again and then pulled his head down to kiss him fiercely again in a way that almost made him combust right on the spot. He stroked leisurely, almost automatically into her depth. A climax was not front and centre in this scenario. Their union was, this moving in each other. This time, she didn't sling her legs around his back to give him a rhythm, to pull him in. She drew up her legs with bent knees and let him move in between at his leisure. He supported himself on his stretched out hands and shuttled in and out, looking at Hermione's face. She looked likewise back at him and held his wrists to hold herself in place. Being so otherwise occupied, it took them a while to realize that once again, they were bathed in purple light. Hermione gasped when she noticed, and called his attention to it.

"Draco, the compow."

Draco stopped his movements, pushed himself up on his hands and regarded the purple hue around them.

"And so it is," he said sternly. "Hello, compow. Come to enjoy the show? Like to watch my arse moving?"

"Draco!" Hermione cried in shock. He regarded her with furrowed forehead. "What, Hermione? What can it possibly do?" he said angrily.

When Hermione didn't say anything but bit her lip instead, looking anxiously at the light around them, some barrier broke in him.

"Are you still thinking it's the compow behind me fucking you?" he hissed with a glint in his eyes and thrust his hips forward once, entering her deeper.

He disregarded how her eyes widened in shock. He hadn't addressed her this aggressively in a long time. "Want me to show you that it's me deep in you?" he snarled. Subsequently, his voice became lower and quieter, until he spoke with a sinister hiss. "I, Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, grandson of Abraxas Malfoy, and a very long line of more Malfoys back to the time of William the Conqueror? What do I have to do, so you'll believe that it's I driving deep into you? I who wants to be deep in you? I who wants to bring you up and see you climaxing in a beautiful explosion? I who wants to be embraced and held by you when I come? I who wants to stay in you, until we feel like we can go again? Hm? Granger? Do I have to go back to calling you "Granger", after I tried so many times to call you Hermione? Call you Granger, like I did in school when I couldn't stand seeing you next to Potter and his muscelidae sidekick?" He shoved his cock into her a few more times on every "I", getting deeper with every shove.

"Do I have to insult you again as well, like I did in school, so you see? Insult your intelligence, your brilliant mind that remembers everything it once consumed, but that works very sluggishly with regards to my person? Kind of insulting to me actually. Do I have to insult your looks? Do I have to call you buck-toothed again, although your teeth are one straight line of pearly whites, which I love seeing when you laugh? Do I have to insult your bush of hair that is strong and soft at the same time, somewhat like you?"

He ignored her deep inhales, her look that showed her shock over his sudden change in behaviour, and the fact that she had gripped his shoulders with her fingernails digging into the flesh, not knowing if she had to hold him or hold him off her.

"Shall I insult that you are afraid of your feelings? That you are afraid you could potentially develop feelings for the bad Draco Malfoy, your tormentor? You, the prudish Gryffindor princess, who would be too good for the fallen from grace Draco Malfoy? Afraid that you could fall in love with him, although he insults you, because he can fuck you almost all the way to heaven, princess?" Hermione gasped when he hit that spot driving into her again, both verbally and literally, the one spot in her that got her every time. He had instinctively discovered that particular spot in her the very first time they had slept together and was very good at finding it again and again.

"Put your feet up, princess, I want to get in deeper," he growled at her. He stopped once when she didn't react, dazed and in shock, staring at him, and pulled her legs up and around his torso, so they would rest somewhere below his shoulder blades. When he continued his thrusts, he dove in deeper than before, hitting the end of her channel each time.

"Haa, yes, that's more like it," he moaned thrusting. "Shall I insult that you are afraid of our brilliant piece of mutual magic? Afraid of how it is affecting you? Afraid that it isn't affecting you at all and you have to stand up for yourself and your feelings at one time? That's actually a typical muggle thing to do, to be afraid of unknown magic; to believe that it could do something to you and not to know that you are the one mastering it. Aren't you descended from muggles, Granger? A muggle-born? Despite your brilliant powerful magic, aren't you a mudblood?" When she startled and winced, he pushed deeper. "Don't like me calling you mudblood? Shall I call you "mudblood" again as I called you in school, when I was young and stupid and impressionable and believed all the shite that my parents dished and fed me?"

"No," Hermione moaned, partly in shock because she didn't want him to call her "mudblood" ever again, and partly because he hit her spot each and every time he drove into her, and she could feel her muscles shaking in anticipation of the oncoming climax. Tears pricked her eyes because she was afraid; afraid that he was right with his suggestions, afraid of his sudden anger, afraid for him, of what it would do to him when he hurt her painfully in his fury. Which he wasn't doing at the moment. On the contrary, his deep furious drives hitting her cervix and shaking her uterus and front wall gave her inner contractions, which almost blinded her in all-consuming pleasure.

She could feel his fury emanating from him, though, and she understood. He had tried to show her that he was not indifferent to her anymore, and she had denied him each and every time. She had cut him down every time he had tried to wriggle himself into her thoughts as something other than Draco Malfoy, (converted) follower of Voldemort, because she had been afraid of what her friends would say. And Ron. She had been afraid of Ron's fury, when he found out that she was with Draco Malfoy. Even though her friends clearly told her to go for it, and it was absolutely none of Ron's business who she was with now.

Draco was just as magically powerful as she was. He was as able to hurt her as she was able to hurt him, but he didn't. They were matched. Independent of his upbringing, which she couldn't hold against him, the same way she didn't want him to hold her upbringing against her, he was a magically powerful wizard and he matched her magic. Together, they were a powerful couple. A powerful union. They were a powerful union whether they wanted to be or not. Whether they were in love or not. They were a union, the magic had connected them, and now they were. And there was no use in denying it. So, she might as well take him as he was, whether he was snarky, snobbish, insulting Malfoy who worked the compow with her, or Draco who massaged her feet, shagged her sky high and was liked by cats, or a little bit of both, whether he needed her help, her comfort, her warmth or drove her up the walls with his cold-calculating, intrusive personality. She could release her hold on her emotions and let them unfold as they wished, because whatever she felt wasn't going to change the fact that they already were a powerful couple. He had told her that already, having had more insight than she had allowed herself. Besides, his deep drives were driving her close to the edge. How he was able to do that to her, she had no idea. But it was doing him in as well. She could see by the sweat on his forehead that despite his anger he was stimulating himself with his thrusts and wasn't far behind her. She retracted her fingernails and stroked over his torso wherever she could reach it. She was no martyr, but she had invoked his rightful anger and she was going to take what he dished out. If it helped him, she would take it. As long as he didn't hurt her physically. She relaxed back and closed her eyes to savour the pleasures that his furious moves aroused, feeling the warmth sweep over her.

"Mudblood," he hissed again, despite her moan. "Want it hard, mudblood? Hard and fast? Here we go, your wish is my command, mudblood. Hard and fast it shall be." He picked up speed and slammed into her that her bed creaked. While fucking so hard and fast that he shuddered from the mere impact and his body broke out in sweat from the exertion and he panted as a result, so that he only brought out parts of his sentences per pant, he delivered his last blow to her:

"What you don't - understand, - mudblood, - is that it would be so much easier - to be the old Draco Malfoy, - the one you know from school. - The one that insults you at every turn, - the one who sneered upon your sight, - the brainwashed one who - thinks you are inferior to him - and thrives on his superiority complex. - This fucking - change is what's hard. - Changing into a - decent human being, - driving all this - mental crap out of my mind - and not losing - myself in the process. - And I - thought - you would help me with it, - but you - hide behind - your fear of what - might happen when you - figure out that I am – not only the - stupid git I was in school. - But I need you. – Fuck - I need you - to help me. - I want you - to help me - and I am - fucking tired - of you - hiding out on me. - Because I can't - do it without you. - You can't - give a man - a hand and - pull it back - when he tries - to grab it. - That's called teasing. - And it's fucking cruel. - Are you teasing me, - mudblood Granger? - Are you a tease, - mudblood? - Are you? - A fucking - mudblood tease, - princess?"

That ignited her. She was no tease. She had held out her hand to save him, for fuck's sake. And she had a right to be suspicious of his intentions. She had made mistakes, for sure, but he could not insinuate that she had done them intentionally. She growled and her eyes snapped open to stare directly into Malfoy's dark grey ones, way over her. His eyes glimmered dangerously and furiously. His face was an infuriated mask and sweat was dripping of his chest and forehead onto her stomach and thighs that were slung around him. Hermione thought she'd never seen anything more beautiful and sad and upsetting; like a dying angel.

Her hand darted out and her upper body shot up and she grabbed a fistful of his blond silky hair and pulled his head down to her. He looked shocked at her sudden action, but his fury returned in a split-second and he snarled in her face.

"Granger, fucking let go of my hair."

"No," she snarled back. "Not before you listened. I said I would take you and I stand to my word. I keep my promises. But I also remember quite clearly that I asked you to make me yours, and that requires some work on your part; a work that apparently you have not quite succeeded in completing when it is obvious that I still have doubts who I belong to. So," she narrowed her eyes while his widened at her blatant challenge, "get to work, Malfoy. You have a task to fulfil. Make me come the way, only you can do. Make me scream your name, when I come. And if you show me more often who I belong to, maybe it'll sink into my overly busy brain."

And then she let go of his hair. His head jerked back and he looked like a fire-breathing dragon mother who discovered her eggs stolen. A little mad, to be honest. Hermione lifted her chin in defiance. Holding her gaze, he panted and shook again like he was in a fever, almost like the time when the bond broke. Only this time, it was from his exertion and emotional turmoil and fury. With his head jerking back, his hips snapped forward and Hermione gasped at his renewed intrusion into her innermost centre.

"Mudblood," he pressed out between clenched teeth and snapped his hips forward again. Hermione felt him stroking over that one particular spot inside her and closed her eyes to feel it better.

"Mudblood," Draco breathed in her face. He had lowered himself again and hovered right over her face, as she discovered when she opened her eyes again to slits. He thrust forward and hit her cervix again. She inhaled at the pleasant feeling flooding her. It didn't matter that he called her "mudblood". She understood. He was furiously mad, and she had thrown the gauntlet. It was an open feud. They were going to carry it out. There was going to be no winner or loser, just two people adjusting to how to treat each other. It was rough at the moment, but they had to fight this out to clear the air. He was testing her. Perhaps not consciously, but he was testing if she could stand his open opposition; if she could take him with his anger and his destructive behaviour. And she could. She knew she could. This thought made her so happy that she had to giggle, right in his furious face.

"What are you laughing at, mudblood?" he hissed.

"You," she said. He snarled. "And me," she continued. "You and me." And then she laughed. And he kept hitting her cervix. And she gasped. And then she laughed again, to his continuously darkening face. But when he took a deep breath to let his fury go at her, she caught his head in her arms, and kissed him on the mouth the same way she had kissed him on the way to the bedroom. At first, he tried to resist and pull his head out of her embrace, snarling. But when she bit lightly on his lower lip and soothed her tongue right over the bite, he stopped jerking his head. Thrusting into her, he held his mouth over hers and let her kiss him at her own leisure.

"Mudblood," he murmured one more time.

Hermione kissed him. "Shut up," she said.

"Mudblood," he said again, just to defy her, scowling.

She kissed him again to pull his shoes off, had he still worn any. She closed her legs over his back, the way she knew he liked, and pulled him in. It was his turn to gasp.

"Shut up," she whispered with a glint in her eyes, "and bring me."

Scowling like three days rainy weather, he fixed his gaze on her and sped up his movements again. It only took a few thrusts for them to pant again because of the pleasure it created. They knew their respective bodies well by now, after they'd shared and explored them repeatedly over the last two days. Draco knew just the right angle to hit Hermione's spot and have her squeal in delight. He aimed a little to the left of that spot, so it would frustrate her if he didn't hit it directly. But he hadn't reckoned with Hermione's newly awoken confidence. She saw through his manoeuvre and chuckled while she upped her efforts in kissing and pulling him in, and sneakily dug her hands into his hair. When she scraped the first time lightly over his scalp, he inhaled deeply. She dug her fingernails into his head again and sucked his lower lip between hers, smoothing her tongue over the inside of his lip. He exhaled deeply.

She kissed him again. And again. And again with increasingly passionate, ravenous movements, with her tongue gliding over every surface in and around his mouth, her lips pulling and teeth biting increasingly less softly. She tightened her inner muscles and pulled his cock deeper into her. Her pants went directly into his mouth and when he reflexively gripped her lower lip back and pulled, she moaned from the bottom of her heart. And he couldn't help it, he got lost in her arousing actions. How she knew exactly what to do to make him lose control, he didn't know. But it was fact that she did. He had always thought he was the master of control during a shag. The witches had obeyed his every whim for the pleasure he was giving them. His reputation had made sure that they knew what to expect. But none of them had even remotely given him as much pleasure as Hermione Granger could with her naively daring provocation; with her insinuation that he couldn't control her; that she could in fact control him; or make him lose it. He growled.

He had to adjust his angle because his arms started to shake and he couldn't hold himself up anymore. She laughed when she felt him coming back to the right spot.

He scowled deeper, while pulling her lip again. "Mudblood" he said again when he let go of her lip, to hold up the illusion of control. He was rewarded with her incredible laugh.

He did it again with the same effect. "Mudblood," he said again and she laughed with her eyes closed. "Yes," she moaned, laughing, "give it to me. Say it again."

"Mudblood," he said again, bewildered. Did she just blatantly defy his control?

"Again," she laughed.

"Mudblood," he said. "Again," she squealed, shaking with unrepressed amusement and arousal.

"Mudblood," he repeated, getting used to the rhythm. On every shove, he said "Mudblood" and heard her squealing in delight. But the rhythm was getting to him. With the previous stimulation and the aggravation of their fighting, he felt the blood rushing south and her inner muscles twitch and quiver.

Mudblood," he said, "Mudblood, mudblood, mudblood, muddd.., m.., m.., m…" He couldn't say it anymore. With the blooming heat shooting right in his loin, he was captured in the infinite pleasure of shagging Hermione Granger, in the way she pulled his socks off when she kissed him and took him in her, where he felt whole, and all brain functions ceased, except the essential vital ones.

"M…, m.., m.., my, mi, Mione, Hermione," he kept babbling, on every stroke, feeling his balls constrict. He closed his eyes because the light coming from her bedroom window was hurting his already strained sensorium.

"Yes," she answered in moaning, somewhere below him. "What happened to hard and fast?"

He groaned and picked up speed, but his overloaded body couldn't take any more. He slammed in two, three times and felt the blood surging and stopped.

"Hermione, you…, I can't …, you have to…" he stammered.

"No, one more, two more," she whimpered. "Please, please, please,..."

He gathered his very last strength, and thinking about the one time when he had come upon a Death Eater who had stayed over at Malfoy Manor, dressed only in his underwear on the way to the bathroom, and how it had affected him how this man could have been so thoroughly ugly and unhygienic, he was able to hold his climax back for three more strokes. It was immensely difficult because Hermione was close, and she had kept up a stream of "please, please, please, please", which opened out into a pressed "Draco, Draco, Draco, oh, please, yes, oh, yes, haa" when she came, and when he felt Granger's muscles strangling his prick in her warm cavern, he exploded choking "Hermione, Hermione, Hermione" with a colour inferno bursting in front of his eyes. He was blinded by it, and he felt the air being sucked out of him with his sperm, and he strained to breathe properly. He felt Hermione pushing her pelvis against him and sucking his cock in with her own spasms. Draco howled, despite having no air for it, and whimpered like a kicked puppy when he felt his essence being sucked out of him with his come by Granger's milking muscles. Black spots appeared in front of his eyes and he was certain that he would pass out any minute. And then he would go to hell. If he lost consciousness, the hell hounds would snatch him up in their stinking snouts and drag him off, he was sure of it. Mudblood. He had called her the abysmally horrible word of abuse again, and she had laughed in his face. This was so bizarre, he knew no word for it. It was a first for him. This witch tested his limits like no one else could. What had he gotten himself into?

When he was empty and drained, he wanted nothing more than to fall down on his witch and be embraced into her warmth. He stopped short in the middle of his relaxed decline when he remembered again what he had done and what he had called her. It occurred to him, in an outskirt of the very few parts of his brain that were not short-circuited, that she might be freaking mad and he might not be allowed to rest on her.

Since she had her eyes closed in relaxation, he had to call her: "Hermione?"

She opened her eyes, highly satisfied and content they gleamed, and saw him hovering over her, bewildered, at his tether's end like a lost puppy. She smiled at his obvious confusion and uncertainty and opened her arms to receive him. Relieved, he sank down on her and snuggled his head into the crook of her neck. Home. Thank Merlin.

.

.

_A/N: Hahaaa, __I am pushing past 20.000 words, so the after-talk will have to go into the next chapter – again. Sorry about that._

_As for Draco mentioning Hermione liking lists, I admit that Anne M. Oliver wrote an excellent story about lists (aptly called "The List"; go, read it, it's really good), but it is a well-known fact that Hermione Granger likes to write things down. Just saying._

_And I was going to say, I made the terrible mistake of reading Bexchan's newest "Isolation" chapter, when I wrote this one. Her Draco is so impressively snarky and Malfoyish that I felt rather jealous and depressed that I can't get my Draco to be like that. It makes for nice tension between the two main characters and my Draco is, unfortunately, more mellow. I went over this entire chapter again to adjust him a bit but I still wasn't satisfied. That was before I came up with the final shag. Unfortunately, these edits take a lot of time and I am already on borrowed time (I __have__ to work on my university project). But I also have to get the story further. And then I sat down with Kings of Leon and while listening to "Closer" it came to me, how I could bring out the old snarky Draco that we love – and have Hermione go through the necessary transformation. (This story takes on a life of its own, I swear. I'm just the medium, writing it down, honestly.) Then, I went over it again and realized that my Draco is not supposed to be as snarky as "Isolation's". So, I changed something back. It's a gruesome process, writing._

_Anyhoo, that's where the Chapter title comes from and this last shagging (part 5 or 6, I lost count. Rabbits come to mind). It's fitting. I also have to credit Adam Lambert, "For Your Entertainment". The control/domination, pushing limits thoughts come from his song._

_Let me know, though, where you think Draco is too mellow for a Malfoy and what he could say or do instead (missing a beta, you'll have to do it). I'll credit you for it if I use your suggestion, of course. That would help me big time._

_Thanks, folks._


	27. Breaking Spells

_A/N: Yeah, __nikki98__ was the first reviewer. Thank you, after my doubts and reflections, I like my Draco as well. I kind of came to the same conclusion as you; __Random person__: I won't stop until the story is complete (although it is going to take me a while (think a few months) longer than I thought). I'm just hoping I'll still get reviews, __even though__ it'll be complete. Considering how much longer it already took, when I thought I could finish it by Christmas 2011, I just don't know how much longer it's going to go, although, for me, there is not much story left, just character development and tying up loose ends. And __( )__: thank you for your review, too bad you forgot what you had to say ;-)). You were right though, the last chapter was a bit long. I'll cut this one better. And __Artemisgodess__, thank you for the whole nine yards._

_I wonder, and maybe you all can help me, if maybe I should change the summary under the title? Or the title? Is it misleading? Do people perhaps think it means that there will be brutality in the story? _

_One thing: I noticed that it looks awfully small on the screen when you read long paragraphs. There will be many paragraphs in this chapter, so I advise you to increase your screen size. I work at 130% normally, it makes all the difference._

_Aaaanyway, here's the "after-talk" from their last encounter and a bit more._

_Have fun and review_

**.**

**Chapter 20: Breaking Spells**

**.**

As it turned out, he was not passing out. Despite the black spots and the choking, he had apparently sufficient resources to not pass out. Pity, that. A nice black oblivion would have been just right, right about now. It would have had the advantage of making you forget what you'd done. Ah, well, at least the hell hounds were not going to get him. Not yet, at least. Or on second thought, perhaps he already was in hell and he just appeared to be in a warm bed with Granger's sated warm body under him, lodged still deep in her folds, with her arms and legs wrapped around him. He could feel it twitch pleasantly on his prick from time to time. Perhaps the warmth would increase exponentially soon and become the fires of hell. Perhaps that was the whole point of hell; it appeared to be nice in the beginning and then turned out to be hell; which would certainly lead to horror and resulting insanity. And speaking of insanity, Granger had shown certain signs of it just previously. He needed to check whether he was in hell or not. He stirred and spoke directly in her ear.

"Granger?"

She stretched and cuddled deeper into his covering warmth. "Mmmm?"

"Are you insane?"

She giggled but didn't answer.

"Are you?"

She giggled again. "Why would you ask that?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Mmm," she made, not agreeing, not denying.

"So, are you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Hm."

Silence ensued for about a minute.

"Malfoy?"

"Hm?"

"Are you insane?"

"Probably."

"Oh."

After another minute of silence, she continued: "How does it feel?"

"Frightening. But also liberating."

"Liberating?"

"Yes."

"Hm."

Again another minute later, Hermione said:

"I feel liberated. Do you think I am insane?"

"Absolutely."

She scoffed. "But who cares what you think?"

"Manners, Granger. I care about what I think."

"Hm."

Yet another minute.

"Malfoy?"

"Hm?"

"Why do you think I'm insane?"

This time, he took a deep breath and finally lifted his head from the crook of her neck where he had been luxuriously resting after their last mind-boggling shag. Literally. Their minds had to be boggled because what had happened in the last half an hour was nowhere near sanity. Not even in the same galaxy.

Fixing her gaze, he answered. "I called you "mudblood" and you laughed in my enraged face. How is that not insane?"

She looked into his light grey eyes, chuckled and put a hand on his cheek. "Did I tell you that I like your eyes better when they don't look angry or annoyed? Piercing, yes, but not annoyed."

He looked annoyed. "Are you trying to distract me?"

"No."

"Good. It's not working. Why did you laugh in my face?"

"Well, I feel quite happy."

"Happy. I call you "mudblood" and you feel happy," he said monotone.

She giggled again. "No, silly. I feel happy because you showed me that you are really you. So, I can trust whatever you say as really coming from you. And I realized that it doesn't matter if I guard my feelings or not, because we are already connected. We already are a union and no matter how we feel nothing will change that. So, we may as well do the best with it and let it develop as it may. And under your threats to insult there were enough endearments to last for a few weeks."

He goggled in a very un-Malfoyish way. "Endearments? You have a funny way to understand endearments."

"Well, I'm sure they'll get better over time, but it was a start." She giggled again.

He sneered. "Will you stop this annoying giggling?"

She giggled again. "No. That comes under the "happy" heading. Happy and giggling go together."

"Well, stop it. It's driving me insane."

"Didn't you say you already were?"

"I said, probably. Why, do you think I'm insane?"

"Probably."

"Why do you think I'm insane, Granger?" He frowned.

She regarded him thoughtfully. "Well, either you just fucked a mudblood almost through the mattress and into the bedframe and should be convulsing, throwing up over your disgust; or you were lying to yourself about this whole mudblood thing and didn't mean it. Either way is unhealthy and healthy equals sane and therefore it's in-sane."

Shocked over her use of expletives, he sobered immediately.

"I'm sorry, Granger. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…"

She put her hand over his mouth quickly. "Shhh. Of course, you shouldn't have. But you did and it served a purpose. It cured me from my irrational fear. It showed me that I can't trust my own brain because I'm over-thinking things way too much. It helped me to trust myself again. So, thank you."

"Thank you? You are thanking me for calling you "mudblood"?" Draco goggled again, speaking against the underside of her fingers. It was official, he was going insane.

"Well, don't let it go to your head and think I chose this as the endearment I want you to call me in the future. But this one time something good came out of your term of abuse," she snapped.

Draco had to smile. The world was right when Granger snapped at him. That didn't mean that they were going to build their future interactions on verbal abuse, but it gave him a sense of normality for the moment. As normal as he could feel at the moment, because he felt somewhat uncharacteristically exuberant that Granger was okay despite him having called her mudblood again. He chuckled and when Hermione joined him with a smile, he full out laughed.

He threw himself to the side and rolled over on his back, pulling Hermione with him. She made "Whoops" and landed on his stomach. Before she could catch her breath, Draco had let go of her waist and grabbed her face and smooched her mouth as if he wanted to pull her inside out. Hermione felt her sensitive centre pulled up all the way into her throat and when his tongue played in her mouth, it felt as if he almost touched it with his tongue. Hermione wanted to open up and put him right there, so he could always touch her like that. It was such a deliciously naughty feeling he invoked. She always felt like sighing in relief and squealing in pleasure at the same time. The same thing applied every time he entered her: she felt relief, because he was where she wanted him most, and squealing pleasure, because he stretched her so deliciously. He played her like an instrument: every one of his moves invoked a hitherto unknown physical reaction from her, and she loved it. It was almost addictive and just what she needed to balance her tendency to overthink everything.

For five minutes or so, they were thus engaged. He rolled her over on her back and pulled her back on his stomach several times, until with a last peg, he let go of her lips. Hermione was a little dazed from being kissed so exuberantly and the pleasurable feelings inside. With difficulty, she tried to focus on the blond man who still held her head and face in his warm hands, lying under her on her bed.

"Draco, what …" Her breath hitched, when she finally saw the young man looking up at her. Draco's face glowed in never before seen delight. She had seen his eyes aglow before, their first evening together after her return from the hospital, but that was nothing compared to their shine now and the way the rest of his face glowed as well. She put a hand on his cheek.

"What happened to your face?" she asked in awe.

The glow dimmed somewhat. "Why, what happened?" he asked suspiciously.

She smiled, then beamed. "It glows."

"Glows like what? Dragonpox?" He was still suspicious and felt his face with his hands.

Hermione lowered herself to his chest and rested her head on her hands set up on her elbows on his chest and grinned cheekily. "Like a happy person."

Draco's hands stopped in the middle of their movements and he looked at her in shock. She used his immobility to straddle his torso and dart her head forward to capture his lips with hers again and snog him into the mattress. After half a minute, his shock resolved and he put his arms around her and turned her quickly over on her back. Hovering over her, he grinned broadly.

"A happy person, Granger?"

Hermione chuckled. "Yes, a happy person."

Later, Hermione wrote in her diary about this one crucial moment of her falling in love with Draco Malfoy **(Hermione's POV)**:

"Something happened, when our eyes connected in that moment. I saw his grin slide of his face and felt my face fall likewise. Muscle group by muscle group, first the wrinkles in the eye corners, then the raised cheeks, then the stretched mouth and dimply folds vanished, until nothing remained but wide open grey eyes. They darkened when they looked down to my relaxed mouth, where my lips fell open because they were so slack. His gaze went back and forth between my lips and my eyes, as if he couldn't decide where to stay them, and they got darker with every turn.

When his face had moved through the relaxed phase, it moved on into the well-known frown and with it came the clenching of his jaw and the piercing of his eyes. We had already established that he became snarky when he felt uncomfortable, so whatever occurred to him at that moment, was either very new or unpleasant to him. In any case, I wasn't too worried about his frown. He would make it known in due time what was on his mind. What disquieted me a bit was his cutting gaze.

On occasion, Draco Malfoy's grey eyes could be soft like grey velvet or alight like a crisp winter morning. But when they pierced you, they became hard and cutting like glass, crystal clear and unyielding like steel. They cut through you like a surgical knife. So, it wasn't without trepidation and a clenching of the stomach, especially in light of his very recent rage, that I observed Draco Malfoy's eyes piercing me as if he wanted to cut open my head. His face came closer and closer until it loomed over me and took in my entire vision.

You may wonder why I let him come this close to me when I felt timid about his approach, but we had been a lot closer than that previously, and I couldn't imagine that he would harm me in that particular moment without provocation. And the clenching of my stomach could have other reasons, too. I wasn't quite certain. Plus, I felt caught like a rabbit by the snake's eyes. Only when our noses almost touched, did it occur to me that the piercing in his eyes was a sign for his resolve and that he was about to kiss me. And with that thought my heart took off in a race, hammering against the inside of my ribs; it pulled my stomach up, constricted my chest and arrested my breathing.

All I'd ever received in terms of kisses were quick pegs or urgent smooches or fumbling, slobbering trials of first kisses. I'd never had one of these first kisses, where you could see the man approaching millimetre by millimetre, your heart beating in your throat, your palms sweaty, hesitation and uncertainty over the reception and execution written over both the kisser's faces. One or both tilt their heads to not bump the foreheads or noses together and when the lips first touch, it is soft and shoots through your body like a lightning bolt, your lips attached to the other kisser the only thing holding you up. One adjusts to this new electrifying feeling, adjusts to the way how the lips fit together best, until you found the perfect match, and it is heaven. I'd never been kissed that way and I had resigned myself to the fact that I was just not kissable in that way; that men either saw me as a woman, who would take the lead and show them how to kiss right, cue the eye roll here, or that I was passionate for two due to my vigour with regards to school or work, and so, I had been either near drowned in slobber or suffocated in urgent snogs. Nobody had hesitantly tried to see if my lips were soft and delectable when kissed just right. And although it didn't qualify as a first kiss as such, because Draco Malfoy and I had kissed, well, snogged many times by that time, and in a multitude of ways, it occurred to me only (very late) in that moment, that Draco Malfoy was going to be the first man who would kiss me softly. And my heart grew a little bigger within my chest and nudged strangely against my lungs, making me short of breath.

Having his face so close to mine made me look, really look at his features for the first time. His skin was lighter than mine and it stretched smoothly over his high and prominent forehead and down his cheekbones in one swoop to his broad chin. Being this close, I could see what you usually only realise as an overall effect in a face: for example, that his eyelids were a tad darker than his forehead, bringing out the light grey of his eyes. This close, I also saw that his eyes weren't uniformly light grey but with a light undertone and darker specks unevenly distributed over it, so that depending on the light you would see different colours reflected. Aha, that explained why his eye colour constantly shifted. His eyes were perfectly rounded and accentuated by his dark blond eyebrows. They were not invisible, his eyebrows. One would have thought that being so light blond, his eyebrows and lashes had the same colour and would disappear in his face, but they did not. He was able to use them in his mimic to a great extent.

The straight slope of his nose made it not stand out and directed your sight directly to his mouth, which was surprisingly kissable. Draco Malfoy's lips were not particularly full, which gave his mouth a rather sober look, usually hidden from view by his constant sneering or smirking. His cupid's bow was appropriately swung but his lower lip was rather slim in comparison and anything but luscious. It didn't take away from the fact that his teeth behind his lips were perfect and white, something that a daughter of dentists knows to appreciate. And when he smiled and showed his teeth, it didn't matter at all how his mouth was shaped. The same went for the softness of his lips, and his kissing technique made up for the fact that he had typically male lips.

I was glad that he had given up on slicking his hair back, as he had done when we started school together, because it looked so handsome with the strands of hair falling into his forehead. In any other person, the missing contrast of his light hair, light eyes and pale skin would have looked sickly weak but Draco Malfoy looked anything but. Despite his paleness, he exuded might and looked like a healthy scion of some aristocratic clan. If ever any doubt occurred, his quick wit, powerful magic and alert piercing gaze would convince you quickly that he was in excellent condition. Just because he looked out for his own hide and rather avoided going into a fight that would potentially do him harm (which made him look like a coward in comparison with the daring, though sometimes reckless Gryffindors. In a different light, one could consider him judicious instead of reckless), didn't mean that he wasn't able to fight.

Yes, he had called me mudblood like a bully. All through our childhood, I had been the mudblood. But just like many bullies, he had harassed me because he didn't know better; until he did know better. And then he had stopped bullying me. When I had enraged him earlier today, he had lashed out with what he knew to be hurtful. Because I had hurt him first. I had hurt him in denying him a chance to become better. We had worked together for months and he had shown me his reliably gentler side. But when he had expressed a hope for a deeper connection to me, I had denied that there was a chance that he had changed. I had reached out to him, to pull him over, time and again, believed in him, strengthened him, and when he had wanted to stand up as something other than a former Death Eater, I had felled him. It was clear that I must have either lied to him or to myself before, when I made it clear that his change didn't apply to me. When I expressed, 'Oh sure, Draco Malfoy is a changed man but I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley or with his friends.' And therefore, when brought to his limit, he had lashed out like every man in the face of rejection would.

Fortunately, through its repeated use, the word had lost its power. His behaviour showed that it didn't mean anything to him. My reaction to it had meant something to him. And with my laughing I had taken away his tool to hurt me. Now, it was just a word of propaganda, of a time past. And in the end, he hadn't even been able to say it anymore, because I was no longer a mudblood to him. I was a person, a woman he wanted to date even. Together, we wielded incredible magic. We connected intimately, we challenged each other mentally and we matched personally. This was particularly clear in the way we interacted with each other.

Although he had been deeply enraged when he had called me mudblood for the final time, he had instinctually done the right thing to push me in the right direction. His intrusion into me, physically, verbally and mentally had pushed me out of my brain loop where I used to hide behind my thoughts. Ron would have never done this, not only because that wasn't anything that you do to your friends, but also because he would have never challenged me like that. But it was exactly what I needed. Draco Malfoy, the man, the person, pushed me out of my comfort zone, pushed me forward, made me stretch up, made me grow. Whether he riled me up when I rested on my laurels or stood calmingly behind me when I was frazzled, whether he enraged me when I became lazy or teased me when I became too immersed in things, he knew what to do to propel me forward. My friends, and Ron as a former boyfriend foremost, had accepted that I was Hermione the brain, and they accepted everything I came up with at face value. Malfoy didn't. Be it because he knew that I hadn't grown up in the wizarding world or because he honestly sometimes saw flaws in my thoughts, he scoffed when it seemed ridiculous to him. And that's what I needed to grow. He had brains enough to question me, and through his bravado he challenged me in a way my friends never would.

And the bliss in the bedroom with him was a side effect I had never expected. I was Know-it-all Hermione Granger, the bookworm, the girl that didn't much care about her appearance because she was the brain behind Harry Potter. I had never expected that sexual bliss was ever going to be in my cards. But just as we challenged each other mentally, we matched physically and it was so freaking good, by Gryffindor. I got to the point where I really looked forward to him touching me, exploring my body and bringing me sky-high. I felt my juices flowing if I only imagined kissing him, because he kissed me so well and because of where it would lead inevitably.

And I liked it. I wanted it. I wanted him. I wanted to see him loose control when he came into me. I wanted to believe him when he said he had that only with me. It drove me nuts to think about other women who he had given this kind of bliss to; because it was mine. I had always stood back and took care of others first. I hardly ever claimed something for myself, except good grades. I had always made certain that everybody else was fine, and then finally me too. But this was for me. What this man could give me was for me and me alone. I deserved it. Especially because I gave him the same kind of bliss. I wanted to believe that it meant he wasn't going to stray anymore; because I wouldn't be able to. In my mind, I slowly came to the conclusion that Draco Malfoy was going to be it. I couldn't imagine this kind of bliss with anybody else, ever. I was bound to it. I was bound to him.

His overpowering closeness alerted all my senses and on top of my racing, expanding heart, which I could hear pounding in my ears, it made my stomach tingle. The tingling went all the way up through my chest into my arms. It intensified all other feelings, and I felt his strong legs resting on and between mine, his taut stomach on my front, his chest muscles on my breasts, his hands on my waist moving up, his breath on my face, strands of his hair on my forehead and his unforgettable staff somewhere pressed into my lower belly. It felt warm, quite warm to have his body over mine, but perhaps that was just from my blood racing through my veins. The tingling in my arms also made me want to move them, and I raised my hands to rest them on his upper arms, right on the biceps. All this holding a broom during Quidditch must have been good for something because his arms felt quite firm and muscular, just like his shoulders and back.

He moved his arms over my head to support him and to be able to measure the movement of his head, effectively caging my head in, and with the opening of his armpits, I caught a whiff of pure sweaty Draco Malfoy odour, and I just about turned my head to it and stuck my nose in because it smelled so good. Don't get me wrong, there are sweaty dirty men and they stink like old sweat and unbrushed teeth and cigarette smoke from the previous day, and it turns my stomach just to think about it. But there are men who are basically clean and just covered in a little sweat from very recent exercise. You can smell their cleanliness, and just overlaying it this very delectable odour of maleness that I had already come to associate with Draco Malfoy. It was delicious and I inhaled deeply.

I had to move my hands with the movement of his arms and I stroked them over the underside, through his armpits, and to the sides of his ribcage. He twitched and his gaze broke away when my fingers tickled the sensitive skin under his arms, and he exhaled on my cheek. I felt his breath on my skin like a hot finger stroking over it, inflaming me further. When his gaze came back to me, he captured mine, and there was no escaping it. I could see it forming in his eyes, the resolve that he was going to follow through with what he had already lined up. Luckily, his capturing gaze made me speechless when I normally would have said something and ruined the entire thing. So, my mouth stayed quiet and my chest and stomach clenched in anticipation and my heart did a somersault when he moved his nose a little to the right to get past mine. And then I felt his lips softly on mine and the tingling from my stomach turned into a rush of fire, which flooded through my entire system, down to my root and up to my head, turning my face beet-red in heat, I presumed.

They were so soft, his lips, like butter; feather light brushing over mine, enclosing my upper lip with just a hint of pressure and as quickly gone as they had come, only to reappear on my lower lip to do the same. We had closed our eyes just before the contact of the lips. But even without vision the sensual impact of this kiss was entirely overwhelming: with his odour under my nose and the soft pressure of his warm, smooth lips, my hands on the moving muscles over his ribs, I heard his breathing turn from almost inaudible to loud through the nose, the sound of lips separating and reuniting and the rustling of his hair and I thought, I would explode in delight. The fire inside me became all-encompassing and engulfed me whole and even sent flames licking on my brain, making me dazed.

When his lips touched mine in this soft kiss, a series of tentative, explorative pegs, I realized that as much as I had always wanted a kiss like this, I had totally underestimated the impact of it, because a slow kiss like this is never just a kiss. A slobbering first trial is just that, a trial, and an urgent snog is an expression of something overpowering you; lust, a heat-of-the-moment thing, something impulsive, to be waved away as a lower impulse, insignificant if questioned. But a soft kiss or even a series of soft kisses is not impulsive. It requires a preceding decision, measurement and thought in the execution. It is a conscious act that can never be denied. Only its importance can be negotiated, but its happening can never be argued. The fact that it takes place is a testimony for a want to kiss softly, and you don't do that with somebody you just want to shag. It is a promise of more to come, a promise of hitherto unknown ardency. And as such, it blew a few of my main circuits.

With the overpowering heat all over my body, his male smell, the tactile sensations and the breathlessness of this kissing, I started to feel a little heady and dazed and my breathing turned into panting through the nose. He pulled back when he noticed it, and while lifting his head to catch some essential air, he looked at me like a deer caught in a headlight. He was equally stunned and in awe, and it was clearly written in his face. He frowned uncertainly, and I could see in his eyes that he hadn't meant to make it so intimate, that he had likewise underestimated the impact of this kiss; that it had somehow come over him. And that now, he didn't know what to make of it.

We knew that we were connected not by, but through our compow and that we had gotten close through our work with it. So close, actually, that we enjoyed each other's company very much and the sex was phenomenal and we were dating, well, claiming each other more likely because we couldn't stand the thought of somebody else with the other. We had saddled the horse from the back, though, and gone from antagonizing to soul saving to pain taking, basic humane things, from carefully treading to enjoyable interaction, to need, to intimacy. Nowhere in this equation had we stopped to think about feelings. Or if we even cared.

For Malfoy, feelings had not been in the equation, ever, I imagined. For me, they were the most important part in a relationship, but since this one was most peculiar, and to be needed and intimately connected to a man came second best in my book (especially since "love" didn't get me far the last time), I hadn't much thought about it either in this scenario. Brought to the point where we had to face that feelings were an option, Malfoy was thoroughly flustered and I was right with him. Usually very outspoken and able asserters of our language, we were both equally speechless and stayed immobile, panting into each other's face, caught in each other's gaze.

And then he turned on his back and pulled me with him and slung his arms around my ribcage as if he wanted to break it. He hid his face in my hair in the crook of my neck, which seemed to have become his favourite part of my body, and I heard him breathe deeply.

I stroked over his hair, and watched the strands of blond hair whip back after I'd stroked them down. My preference for his soft hair was only outdone by my bias for his strong hands on my skin. And, well, you know, one other body part of his.

After a while, I heard his quiet voice saying: "The compow is still there."

"I know," I replied and kissed his forehead.

.

He put her on his side, spread the blanket over them both and then pulled her flush to his front. He supported his head on his bend arm and put his face in front of hers. With his free hand, he grasped one of her locks falling over her front and played with it. He pulled it, watched it snap back, and wrapped it around his finger.

"So, why do you think the compow appears?" Hermione asked quietly.

Looking at her lock and turning it with two fingers, he said: "I think it has to be something that we do or feel. Remember the reference to strong emotions in the book? We should go through all incidences of the compow appearing, to see if we can find a pattern."

Hermione nodded and put her upper hand on his biceps again. She followed a vein with her finger tenderly. "Yes, we might stumble over something."

"Starting with its inception?" he queried.

"Why not?" She moved her fingers up his arm, over his shoulder, up his neck to his jaw and stayed there. He liked her fingers stroking over his skin. It was such a sensual movement and he would have never associated it with the bossy bookworm Hermione Granger. And he now considered it as his. He doubted that other men had seen this soft sensuous side of Hermione Granger, ever, and he therefore took unequivocal possession of Granger as a sensual being. He moved his head quickly to the side and took her fingers in his mouth, bit them very lightly and soothed them with his tongue, then let go. She pulled her now wet fingers out slowly and stroked them once around his lips.

"Hmmmmm," she made with a smile. "We'll never get to the point if you keep doing that, Draco Malfoy."

"Old hat," he rebuffed her. "I already said that yesterday morning."

"Oh, you want to make it a challenge, who makes the most original bon mot?" she snickered.

Draco smiled genuinely at her delight. "In general, yes. But right now, I'd rather think about how we invoke the compow. I wonder if it's something emotional because I remember that I was furious the night of its inception." His face darkened. Hermione didn't like that at all. She stroked over his face again.

"I know." She bent forward and kissed him full on the mouth, then pulled her lower lip in with her teeth for a moment of disquietude. "But I had to stand behind Harry. Besides my parents, and you know, that's a relationship gone complicated, Harry is the only person I stand loyally behind."

"That's not true, Granger. Your loyalty is far wider spread than that. You are even still loyal to your scum of ex-boyfriend." He scowled at her but not as deeply as he usually did.

She sighed: "That's true. It's changing, though. But he's still one of my best friends, his sister is my girlfriend and his family is my ersatz family and I love each and every one of them."

"See, there are even more people you are loyal to." He sounded dejected.

"Draco," she smiled lightly. "None of them ever stayed overnight in my bed, shagging me through the mattress." She stroked his face once more. "Give us time."

He took that in silence and asked another question: "How's it changing, your loyalty to the weasel?"

Hermione in- and exhaled once. "Well, I believe, I lived my life still thinking a lot about what he would think about my actions. And I know he would be, will be, livid when he finds out that I am dating Draco Malfoy. But I just realized that it's really none of his business. It'll take me a while but I'll get there, that Ron's opinions do not determine my life."

"Good. I won't have the weasel connected to you while you are dating me," Draco growled. Hermione sniggered again.

"No danger of that. I'm connected to you, remember?"

He pulled her closer to his front. "Yes, I remember. I also remember how you screamed in pleasure a few times and I wonder if the weasel got you there."

She scowled. "That's neither here nor there, Draco. Let it go. It's not worth it. I won't have you brag in front of Ron about things we had no control over. That we connect so well is not an achievement on our part, either."

"On the contrary," Draco smirked. "I consider it an achievement because I worked hard to learn how to please women. It was pleasurable work but it took some effort."

She chuckled. "Okay, I'll give you that. Well done."

"Want to see what else I learned?" He dug his nose into her neck and breathed deeply.

"Old hat," Hermione grinned. "I said that when I referred to the book from the Hogwarts library."

He pulled back and glanced at her with a furrowed forehead. "I'll have to work hard it seems, to keep up with your memory."

"And aren't you going to like that?" Hermione grinned.

He smirked. "I'm going to love it. It's going to keep me on my toes."

And then, another snogging session ensued.

.

Hermione detached her lips after five minutes and came with an "A-haaa" up for air over his blond head. He was not to be deterred and moved further down to her neck and throat, shoulders and breasts. She put her hands in his hair and pulled on some tufts.

While she moved on her back, he continued kissing further down her body, until he lay between her legs with his head over her stomach, supporting himself on his forearms and placing his head on her front. He turned it every few minutes to give the skin of her stomach another nuzzle or kiss and to enjoy the view of the underside of Hermione's perfectly round breasts, a view rarely taken. He wanted to think that he was the only one who had plenty opportunity to take in this spectacular view. And he enjoyed it all the more, knowing that he could take possession of that as well and without Hermione knowing what he actually did. Very Slytherin. He committed it to memory, this particular view. No matter what happened, he would never let go of this: the view of Hermione Granger's breasts from this particular position was his and his alone. And he felt oddly at peace with himself and the world, now that he'd claimed it.

Hermione had her hands dug deep into his silky hair and moved her fingers every so often over his scalp or sifted through his locks. Since her mind had nothing better to do, it ambled idly over her most recent thoughts that were only quickly sat aside but not thoroughly thought through. It got stuck on something bothersome that he just had had to bring up.

"Ow, Granger. Gentle with my hair. What's going on up there?" A lazy drawl came from her stomach. The blond head belonging to the voice came up from her stomach, and with her hands still in the hair, made its two slate grey eyes look piercingly in her direction.

Hermione sighed. "It just makes me angry at times to think of how many women have seen you like I did."

Draco smirked: "And don't I know it," but frowned when it failed to amuse Hermione. "You'll never let me live down that I had my fair share of women before I had you, won't you? Mainly because, I couldn't have with them what I have with you? And despite the fact, that the skills I acquired with them will do you a world of good?" He turned back to her stomach and gave it a little nip close to the navel to underline his point.

Hermione ignored his insinuation and frowned. "Will you ever tell me exactly what you have with me, so I can put aside my worries that you will tire of me in a typical Malfoy fashion, and eventually leave me because I bore you?"

He frowned back. "Granger, you are the first woman ever who I stayed with not only for one entire night, but two consecutive ones, and the days in between as well. I spent several days in the hospital, waiting for you to wake up, and then three days in your apartment shagging. That's unheard of with regards to my usual behaviour. If Blaise hears about this, he'll order the flowers for the wedding. I'm not going anywhere. Time will show what will happen. What more do you want?"

A worry line occurred between her eyes. "I need you to reassure me of that a lot. For starters, you could tell me how many women have seen you like I did?"

He smirked: "Not too many. I'm usually fairly controlled. And I usually don't curse as much either." He pulled himself up over her chest. Hermione admired the view of the blond man hovering over her body and how favourably it showed his torso when he did just that. She moved her hands from his head to his shoulders to feel the tightened muscles under his skin. There was just something to the way his skin and body felt under her hands. She couldn't put it into words, but it made her tingly. "That is to say, none. You are getting the best and the worst of me." He bent down to kiss her sternum.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "If the cursing is your worst, we won't have any problems whatsoever in the future."

The smirk slowly slipped from his face, and as if it was pulling him down he lowered his forehead on the area between her breasts and spoke into them: "You know that's not my worst."

Hermione put her hands on both sides of his face and pulled it up again to look in his pained expression. "I can live with what you had to do under pressure. I can even live with angry outbursts like your last because they show that you care. The only thing I can't live with is your manipulative and detached coldness. Don't ever treat me like a lackey, even if you are angry at me. The rest I can handle, I believe. Alright?"

Draco Malfoy looked into the brown eyes of the woman he was coming to regard as his. They were not quite as warm as he liked them best but a bit darkened by worry. He was still astounded over the fact that he had made himself so susceptible to the state of Hermione Granger's eyes, but there you had it. He wanted to alleviate her worries. He liked her eyes better when they were lighter than they were right at that moment. If he had to swallow his Malfoy pride for it, so be it. "Alright. To make you cease your whining, I promise."

Hermione Granger looked back into the swirly grey eyes of the man she would like to consider as hers. Who wouldn't? This man was stellar man-material. Could she trust him enough, to believe what he was telling her and to open up to him? Trying to somewhat reply to his statement, she nodded carefully.

Seeing her hesitation, he thought about the fact that he had never, ever taken a woman to his own private suite in the Manor. When he had shagged them, it had usually been in a quiet corner of the house or they had gone to her home or they had taken a hotel room. That way, he had been able to sneak out when he had been done and the women had been able to wake up in their own beds, or at least not to awkward "mornings after". Apart from the girls who had known him before, because their families were acquainted and he had known them since they had been children, like Pansy and Tori, none of the women he had shared intimacies with had seen his bedroom. His bed had never had a woman or girl sleep in it, not even sit on it, except his mother; and he'd had it since he had been old enough to sleep alone in a bed. And in the face of her hesitation to trust him he felt a token of sincerity was in order. He pulled a card that would show it. He looked meaningfully at Hermione and said: "I want to take you to lunch with my mother."

Hermione eyebrows went up on their own accord. "In the manor?"

He held her eyes with his, for her to read that he tried to be as straight forward as possible for Draco Malfoy. "Yes. My mother is all alone there."

"Why now?"

"By the time we get up and shower and dress, it'll be almost lunch time and I am feeling hunger making its way through my stomach. All this exercise and aggravation with you is burning up energy."

She snorted. "No, I mean, why take me to the manor already today?"

Draco frowned. It ran through his head quickly that he hadn't talked to his mother yet and he really wanted to do that, but he also didn't want to leave Granger. "I still haven't talked to her yet. She didn't even hear from me that my engagement with Astoria is cancelled. I'm sure the Greengrasses will have bombarded her with letters by now. And I want to introduce you to her."

Hermione eyebrows went even higher. "As what?"

Draco's frown went deeper. "As my reason."

By Hermione's frown, he could see that she was thinking it over if she could trust his intentions or not. He wanted to assuage her.

"Trust me. Please," he urged her.

After the briefest moment of hesitation, she nodded.

.

.

Before they could get up, Harry's new owl knocked on the window. He had gotten a fairly dark barn owl, as opposite to Hedwig as possible. "Findus," Hermione cried out, wriggling out from under Draco's body to jump out of bed and open the window and let the owl in.

She untied the string around Findus' leg with a message addressed to her (and Malfoy, oddly enough) and put it aside.

"Want a treat before you go back?" Findus hooted. He wasn't as dignified as Hedwig had been and took the owl treat with delight and gobbled it up. Once swallowed, he ruffled his feathers and hopped toward the window.

"Ready to go? Thanks, Findus, have a safe trip." With a last hoot, Findus hopped out the window and soared into the sky until the grey clouds swallowed his form.

"Didn't you want it to wait, to take the reply back?" Draco asked with furrowed eyebrow over her blatant disregard of wizarding customs to send an answer back with the same owl.

Hermione closed her window again and turned to her message from Harry.

"No, I can either floo call him later or send a Patronus with a reply," she said absently. She opened the scroll while speaking and flew through the few lines and then snickered. Malfoy piped up again: "What's up, Granger?"

Hermione grinned, still looking at the parchment: "Harry invites us to dinner for tomorrow. He writes, he tried to floo-call me several times, to check on my well-being as well, but I either didn't hear him calling, he complains, or he found the fireplace blocked. He didn't dare to come through and finally decided to send an owl missive. He figured you'd still be here and that's why he addressed it to you as well." She looked up at the man who had spent the last days shagged up in her apartment (literally). Still grinning, she asked: "Would you be okay going to dinner over to Harry's tomorrow night? Many of my friends are going to be there, I believe. Harry and Ginny, Ron and Lavender, I assume, maybe Luna, Neville, Ron's brothers, Seamus and Dean."

Malfoy measured her. "Would you want me to go with you?"

Hermione crawled back in the bed under the cover to snuggle up against his warm body. He flinched because her skin had cooled down while dealing with the owl outside the bed, but he enclosed her slim body to warm it up. "Or course, I want you to go with me," she said, once warmly tucked under his larger body and her cold feet intertwined with his warm ones. "It's the question whether you'd feel comfortable to go with me. Will you be able to behave and not rile Ron up every second we will be there?" Seeing his throat over her face she couldn't resist giving it a quick peg.

He pulled a face over her question but nuzzled his nose into her hair line. "Will you punish me if I do?"

Hermione smirked while putting her cool hands on his firm front, which made him twitch and breathe into her hair. "No, you will sleep on the couch while I sleep in my bed if you don't behave."

He pulled back to look in her face, saw the smirk and scowled: "And how is that not punishment?" At the same time, he took one of her hands and led it around his rips to his back and placed it there. "Your hands are cold," he added.

She shrugged and grinned. "Why, you've slept on that couch before, and if I recall properly, you had a good-night's sleep." She pulled her hand back. "Why don't you warm them between our bodies?"

Malfoy looked at her shrewdly. "Perhaps I should just get my fill now and screw tomorrow."

"Screw who?" she smirked.

He smirked back. "Screw you. That'll make you warm." He lowered his head to a kissable distance, but before he could narrow in on the last inch Hermione interrupted him with a sigh.

"I thought we had big plans of you taking me to lunch at the Manor," she said against his lips.

Draco stopped his approach, groaned and put his forehead on hers instead. "Yes, we do."

She put her fingertips on his lips and said regretfully but determined: "How about we get dressed then? There will be more time for this later when we come back."

Draco glanced at the delectable witch in his arms. When we come back. They were coming back here, to her apartment, she and he. She was not going to deposit him at the manor and come home alone, once they entered his world in his home again. She wanted him to come back with her. He was going to come back with her and stay another night, at least. They were going to try to move smoothly between their two worlds, back and forth. It tingled in his chest to think about it. He steeled his resolve to let her out of his arms.

"You're right. Let's get up."

.

After the shower (where under greatest restraint on Draco's part, nothing happened), while she was in her bedroom dressing, he was putting his clothes on (another change of clothes, courtesy of Deezy) in her living room. When he was done, he plopped down on the couch, and thought about the fact that he felt quite comfortable in her apartment with Granger, but how hairy it was going to get when he met her friends tomorrow night.

Although he knew each and every one of them since they had all gone to school together, he was fairly certain that most of them would not react well to his presence, even with Granger as a go-between. He hoped that Potter and his girlfriend, the Weaselette, had her brother under control because it would become ugly if the weasel attacked him. He wasn't concerned about his safety. Contrary to popular belief, he was not always afraid for his life or his health or dignity when encountering Potter and his friends. But he was aware that it would hurt Granger, if he maliciously reacted to Ron Weasley's antics. In any case, with Granger nearby, he was infinitely stronger than Ron Weasley at the moment, so there was no reason for concern. But he didn't want to rile Weasley up, and he didn't want to be in a situation, in which he would have to take a step back to hold the peace. That wasn't fitting. He was a Malfoy and he was not going to bow down to the likes of have-not Ronald Weasley, even if he had gained notoriety through his association with Harry Potter.

Potter was a worthy enemy, he mused, staring at his hands. He had stamina, resolve, certain cunningness and an unwillingness to bow down you just had to respect. But Weasley was not. He was not even a rival anymore because Hermione had made it clear that she and Ron were finished; they had never really been anything to begin with, except friends, for a short time with benefits, so to say. He had to believe that because he would not take seconds from the weasel. Not that Granger could in any way be considered as a left over. She was an enigma, an incredibly powerful witch born to muggles; a witch who had made her place in wizarding history through her own power and person. Something he hadn't, at least not yet. It remained to be seen, if Weasley saw it the same way; that Hermione was not bound to him and never had been, other than through friendship. She was bound to him, Draco Malfoy, and he was not going to relinquish his bond to her. If Weasley couldn't see that, then a fight would be inevitable, wouldn't it? He would be fighting for the right to be with Hermione, even against her friends' opinion, wouldn't he? It would be worth it, wouldn't it? Yes, it would.

He snorted over the ridiculousness of his thoughts. A year ago, no, two years ago, no, even longer than that, he would have crucioed her if Voldemort had demanded it from him. And then, not even a year ago he had taken pain off her because he couldn't stand the thought of her in excruciating pain from his crazy aunt. But he had done it secretly. Would he have jumped openly to her defence, like Potter and the weasel would have done, and had done? Ron Weasley had raged down in the basement when Hermione had screamed in pain. Would he have, if they had threatened to rape her or worse, jumped in to save her skin, her sanity, her dignity? He wanted to believe that he would have done something sneaky or outrageous to distract and divert the perpetrators. Because if he couldn't believe that, how could he justify to even be in the same room as she?

When Crookshanks came up to him to take advantage of the fact that the male human in his mistresses apartment was sitting restlessly on the sofa, deep in thoughts, Draco Malfoy had to grin a little. Crookshanks dug under his between his knees hanging hands and rubbed his head on them. He obliged the orange cat/kneazle by scratching him behind the ear, something that Crookshanks seemed to appreciate very much.

"Well, Crookshanks, who do you think Potter will side with when it comes to a fight between me and the weasel? I heard that you don't like the weasel very much and I can't blame you. I don't either. Just because I've been a ferret once for five minutes doesn't mean I like little burrowing critters." He continued his scratching and Crookshanks proclaimed his appreciation by loud purring. "Potter," Draco mumbled. "Potter is always a wild card in every game. He sent me back to her, you know, back to your mistress. Said something about her Patronus."

Patronus! There was something…

In that moment, Hermione came into the room and saw the blond young man on her couch, scratching her cat's thick fur behind the ears and around the neck. Crookshanks was sitting on his hind legs with his front legs up on the couch ledge between the legs of Draco Malfoy and bowing his neck for the young man to reach better. Said man looked up when he heard her enter the room, and by his wide eyes, she saw that he just had a revelation.

"You know, Janna and Arion had white dragons on their fronts. Like your Patronus," he said.

Hermione stopped in her tracks as if she had been glued to the floor with superglue. "My Patronus. Merlin, my Patronus."

Draco was startled by her alarm. "What, Hermione?"

Hermione spoke as if in trance. "The dream was before the Patronus casting, so I didn't know at the time that it meant something. But you are right; my Patronus is a white dragon."

Draco frowned. "Potter said your Patronus has changed."

"Yes," she said reluctantly.

"What was it before?"

"An otter."

"And now it's a dragon?"

"Yes." She paused. "A white one," she added needlessly.

"Hm," he made, lost in thought. After a minute or so, he seemed to have made a decision judged by his scowl and he continued.

"Hermione?"

"Hm?" she asked, still in her place, waching him tentatively.

"Show me how to do a proper Patronus."

Hermione couldn't have been more stunned had he asked her to introduce him to Ron as his next best friend. "Really?"

"Yeah."

When it sank in, she beamed: "Alright, then."

.

Hermione Granger was in her element, teaching things. Draco knew the basics and the incantation, of course, and she just had to correct minor things. When the happy thoughts he focused on didn't take, she told him that was the case.

"What did you focus on?"

"My first broom," he said irritated.

She shook her head. "It's not strong enough to start it off. Maybe later, when you managed channelling the spell. What else have you got?"

Draco Malfoy dug deep into his memories. First sex, no, too anxious. His letter to Hogwarts, no, that had been spoiled by his father complaining that the education in those days was nowhere near as good as when he had been at Hogwarts, and he should have considered Durmstrang for Draco, the headmaster there at least had the right attitude, but by that time, it had been too late. And Draco had started at Hogwarts, convinced by his father's snide remarks that it was a second class establishment. When he had saved his mother, no, not even close, because it had the downside of Dumbledore being killed at the same time. Good grades, getting on the Slytherin Quidditch team, pff. What else?

He turned his attention back to Hermione, now very irritated, to tell her off his problems to find an appropriate happy thought. When he saw her looking at him expectantly with an encouraging smile, he felt the warmth from her eyes and her smile sweep over him, making him toasty warm from head to toe, inside and out. Because of the warmth inside of him, he felt something germinate and swell and fill him up to his throat, so he had to swallow to push it back down. He thought, this is it, the happiest moment; when she warms me just by looking at me. When this look of hers stands in for all the times she connects her magic with mine and accepts me as hers. Overwhelmed by the strong feelings welling up for the slim witch in front of him, he kissed her and stretched his magic out to hers and through their connection, she felt his spell coming.

"Expecto Patronum," two voices cried at the same time, and all of a sudden the living room was filled with two enormous dragon Patronuses, one Siberian Silvereye male with the typical spiky mane, and one Basque Black female with its neon-green eyes, nuzzling their snouts. Between them, the casters kissed like they were drowning without it.

.

_A/N: I had this actually in the middle of a chapter. But as usual, with filling in all the emotions and everything, this chapter turned long enough and I had to cut it. I can't do 20.000 + word chapters all the time. The next one is as good as done, so you won't have to wait long, I figure._

_And can you see Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy in the description of his face? I pulled up a picture of him on the internet and wrote a portrait of him, so to say. Let me know if you can see it. Or not._

_And I keep it intentionally vague. I want you to sit on the edges of your respective seats and scream "Blast, tell her you love her, you idiot." Let me know if I succeed. They get distracted on tangents whenever they narrow in on feelings because they are not quite there yet. Soon, very soon, my friends._


	28. Energy

_A/N: Sorry everybody, I wanted to have this done last weekend but I couldn't wrap my head around necessary changes. Finally, I re-wrote half the chapter from Narcissa's POV and voila, that works way better. Now, it's one power chapter, because it has two necessary foci, so pay close attention._

_Plus, I actually had to do some work (for my work, not the story). I have the next three chapters as good as done as well, though (I worked on them altogether, it was necessary). We are getting closer to the finish line, I need to put more information in and that takes extra time._

_Okay, explanations are in order. This chapter will fill in many open questions. Let me know how you understand it, if you don't understand and so on._

_And thanks for reviews go to (in imitation of the Academy Awards): constellationgazer, PurebloodsDoItBetter (grin, I'm happy that I succeeded in keeping you on the edge of your seat. Your review had me chuckling for 15 minutes, people were looking at me strangely), Random Person, melissa-tivafan (here's to long nights), 86 (you crack me up, you do. And hold your breath, you may get your wish regarding Ron (cracks her knuckles). And Lavender, too (grins). But not too long (your breath, I mean, I don't want you passing out), it'll be a few chapters in, not in this or the next.), scv914, Slytherin's Little Princess, baresheartbeat, nikki98, and Blackeab1191. _

_Patience, ladies (and gents?). I put that "Blast" sentence in my last writer's notes (and got so much response for it) because I know we all wait for him to confess his undying love to Hermione, but be honest: would you take it seriously if he just came out and kneeled in front of her, producing a wedding band that's been in the family for gazillion of years and asked Hermione to marry him, because he couldn't live another day without her henceforth? _

_No. I wouldn't either. So, patience. He'll get there, in a Malfoy kind of way (I don't think I'll go all Jane Austen on him, that wouldn't be right) but he'll have to __know__ that he loves her, doesn't he? And he's not quite there yet. _

_We are getting closer though. But first things first: Hermione at Malfoy Manor. I present you: Narcissa Malfoy (aka The Mother) and her thoughts regarding Hermione Granger (snickers maliciously). Enjoy the ride_

**.**

**Chapter 21: Energy**

_._

**Narcissa's POV:**

I noticed my son as soon as he passed the doorway. I would say I knew that he was in the house as soon as he apparated on the doorstep but that would be a lie: I only had an inkling. Sitting as I was with my lost sister, I could see him as soon as the door opened and I cannot enough relay my relief to see him in perfect health. That was, until I saw Hermione Granger coming in right after him. I just hadn't expected him to bring her here. But then, I wouldn't have expected him to stay at St. Mungo's with her either. Something did not look right and I would find out what that was.

Ms Granger looked tense but exhilarated at the same time and they both looked ravenous as if they hadn't eaten all day, which was perfectly possible. Draco had been fairly independent when at home, and I had made it a point not to bother him, wherever he went, but to wait for him to come back to me, but it was good to know that at least his creature comforts were taken care off when he was here. Who knew when he had last eaten? I knew, because Deezy had informed me that she had supplied them with meals for the last two days, but who knew how much. And if I had understood correctly he had been sitting for three days at St. Mungo's before and the food there is perfectly inadequate. So to say, Ms Granger was more or less responsible that my Draco had not received proper nutrition for the last few days. I didn't like that at all.

Coming in, at first, Draco was shocked to see the woman sitting next to me on the chesterfield, even though he had seen pictures of my sisters. On first sight, I admit, Andromeda looked just like the late Bellatrix, and I could see in Ms Granger's face the effect of a bad memory surfacing as well. I couldn't really blame her. I can imagine that you can't be tortured and not have a reaction at the sight of your torturer, however much you know that she is dead. But when they saw the baby basket at Andromeda's feet, their features relaxed into regular surprise at seeing her here at the Manor.

I got up and stepped around my sister to greet Draco. Next to me, I felt Andromeda turning to the approaching two youngsters.

"Draco, my goodness, where have you been? I heard you were at St. Mungo's and I received owls from the Greengrasses…."

"Is that who I believe she is?" Draco interrupted me harshly.

"Well, yes, Draco." I said stiltedly, raising an admonishing eyebrow at him. He rarely forgot his good manners toward me. He knew I wouldn't tolerate it. A raised eyebrow was usually sufficient warning.

"Draco, meet your Aunt Andromeda Tonks. Andromeda, my son Draco, and oh, I believe, you know Ms Granger. Hello, Ms Granger." I nodded to her gracefully. It was prudent to be polite to Potter's entourage. They were omnipresent, although not always welcome. Andromeda slowly got up and walked the two steps over to them.

"Pleasure to finally meet you, Draco Malfoy," she said with her voice deeper than mine. She had always been the sturdier one between us two and her voice reflected that. None of us had an ear shattering screech like Bellatrix had.

Draco took and bent over it for a betoken hand kiss and replied: "The pleasure on my side exceeds yours, Madam." The perfect gentleman, my boy. He mastered the social conduct becoming of a pureblood Lord with aplomb and I was so proud. I could see, though, that Ms Granger was not impressed by a twitch in the corner of her mouth, the hint of a sneer. To an outsider, this must have looked like a dry, century old greeting formula that was incredibly outdated. Yes, Ms Granger, this is a formal greeting in social circles you are not a part of, I thought. But I saw by the lightening in her eyes that she was impressed by the way my Draco did it so smoothly, as if he had never done anything else. Of course, he had done it before. I could well imagine though, well, I hoped, she had never seen him like this. Because she wasn't part of this.

This was not her world. And it became all too clear, when Andromeda turned to her, and she was about to quickly grab her hand and shake it. To my astonishment, Draco prevented her by taking her hand in his and before she could say her greeting, he pulled her in front of him and spoke over her shoulder, standing behind her: "And may I introduce Hermione Granger, Madam? Hermione, my aunt Andromeda Tonks."

I gasped. The nerve. Draco Ladon Arion Malfoy, how dare you circumvent my reservations against Ms Granger by introducing her to my older sister first? Have you no shame, you ungrateful little bugger?

Ms Granger was confused and irritated and she made it known. "We've already met, Draco, there was no reason…"

Despite my appal Andromeda laughed and interrupted her. "Hermione, you've just been formally introduced by a member of a pureblood family to another family member. That gives you a certain status within the wizarding world. There is a certain magic to it," she explained with a smirk. Ah, but of course, she would find it amusing that Draco smuggled a mudblood, hm, a muggleborn into my house.

I had to give it to Andromeda: in looks, she was a lot like our late sister Bellatrix, but when she laughed there was no mistaking her. Her face changed entirely and showed a person who enjoyed the delights in life. Something nobody had ever associated with Bellatrix Lestrange, née Black.

Hermione Granger was even more confused and a little nervous. I rolled my eyes: one could clearly see that she had no clue what was going on. I was a little surprised, since her reputation made her out as one who was always informed. And I knew many young girls who were obsessed with noble wizarding customs. But apparently she wasn't one of them. Oh well, so much easier to find that she did not belong here. Looking over her shoulder at Draco's smirk irritated her again, and me as well. Why did he do such a thing without consulting me first? I at least vented my irritation.

"Draco, what is going on? You've been missing for five days, Deezy informed me two days ago where you were, I've been bombarded with owls from the Greengrasses, saying you broke your engagement to Astoria, they claim compensation, and today you come out of hiding with Hermione Granger in tow and introduce her to my sister?"

Draco faced me calmly but not without a residue of smirk on his face. "Oh, my apologies, mother. I thought Blaise and Pansy would have told you where I was until two days ago. And I figured that the gossip of me sitting in St. Mungo's would have reached you earlier. I meant to come by but the one time I was here, I must have missed you. And I was just observing the rule that the oldest family member is being introduced first. Mother, may I introduce Hermione Granger to you? Hermione, meet my mother, Narcissa Black Malfoy."

By the reddening of her face, I saw that Hermione Granger was short of boiling over. We had something in common, after all, in that moment. The little bugger knew exactly that I had to observe the rules of politeness in my own house, especially after he had already introduced her to my older sister: "Pleasure to meet you, Hermione Granger," I said reluctantly and offered my hand to Ms Granger. If she saw my reluctance, she didn't let on and took my hand and shook it but she didn't get any more than "Pleasure is all mine" out, either.

"Perhaps we should sit and explain, mother?" Draco suggested sneakily.

"Yes, of course, please have a seat," I complied wearily but helplessly.

As the lady of the house, I went back to my seat first and my sister followed. Draco guided Hermione Granger by a hand in her back over to the chesterfield opposing and sat right next to her.

Andromeda Tonks regarded her nephew and Ms Granger across from us, sitting very close I must say, as if taking in their entireness. "You two are awfully attuned," she just remarked, sans a propos. The two youngsters exchanged a careful glance and I looked closely. What in Salazar's name did she mean, they were attuned? I knew they were adjuncted but attuned?

"What do you mean?" Draco asked bluntly.

I jumped in, just to have something to say, explaining almost automatically what I had known since I was a young child: "Andromeda was always sensitive to the vibes of people's emotional and magical states. If there was something to see between people with regards to their, how can I say, well, vibrations, she knew it. It would have been very useful for the Dark Lord but she hid it well enough, I'd say."

Andromeda clarified but with a furrowed forehead: "Magical vibrations or energy is the right word, Cissa. And will you stop addressing him so reverently."

I snapped my mouth shut. "Sorry, old habits."

I looked back at my sister who I hadn't seen up close in over twenty years. Oh, I had seen her from afar in Diagon Alley but I hadn't been able to speak to her. And all because of her choice of a life partner. Stupid.

I had missed my sister. I had missed her calming effect in the chaos our lives had become in the past ten, fifteen years, when my only other sister Bella had done nothing but extrapolate the chaos. I had been angry, very angry, not to say furious that Meddy couldn't have been at my side when hell broke loose in my house. And afraid that the monster was going to kill us all. Or Bella in her fanaticism. In that regard, I was happy that Meddy hadn't been here. She already lost her entire family, I was glad that at least she survived. Of course, I felt for her grief. Life wasn't all cotton candy (yes, I know what that is). But at least, we got the monster and his repulsive followers out of the way. I still wanted Draco to marry a pureblood girl to continue the clean and pure Malfoy line, a line that had been preserved for hundreds of year, well, as much as it is known, and that was important. Reputation in our circles is everything. But there could be no doubt that the monsters way to go about blood purity had not been the right one. And now it wouldn't hurt to have my sister back in my life. Now, that everything had been said and done, I wanted Andromeda back.

She must have seen it in my eyes, because she ended up laughing: "Well, just don't do it again."

I nodded. "You know, how sorry I am, Meddy."

Andromeda sighed. "You said that already, Cissy. It's alright. And being sorry won't bring them back. I'm not sorry that I left home to be with Ted. I never was and I never will be. I lost him, but it was worth to leave everything behind, to be with him all those years."

"What did he have that we didn't?" I knew there was a slight accusation in my voice. But I had never understood why she had to leave me for him. We had been so close. Shortly after she went off with him and I married Lucius, our parents had died in a freak accident. I was left with Bellatrix and she was such a comfort to have around, ha. And Lucius never was really the cuddly type. The sex had been alright but I realized quickly that I wasn't getting any points for being needy and soft. I was a very young woman, married to a powerful bad-tempered young wizard, handsome and desirable, yes, loving husband, no, pregnant for the first time (I miscarried a girl I called Serpentina in my mind. Serpentina Malfoy, Draco's big sister. It clogged my throat just thinking about it); and I could have just needed some soul comfort and my sister wasn't there where she always had been, at my side. I had to remind myself many, many times (and Bellatrix had as well, go figure) that I was a Black woman and that we were strong in mind and in constitution. I wasn't going to succumb to life. But it was damn hard. I hadn't felt loved again until after I had Draco and took care of a baby. The house elves took the stressful part of it, the night waking and feedings, the baby crying, and all I had to do was spent some time with a delightful baby that stretched its pudgy arms out to me and snuggled into my chest. Except that these times were always cut short when Lucius came in and snidely remarked I wasn't supposed to spoil his only son, he would become weak.

I couldn't even be fully there for Draco when he injured himself riding a broom the first time. He had been so proud that he managed to get up and into the air. But on that particular day (like many), Lucius and I had had a discussion over my lack of carrying out more pregnancies to the end (I had another miscarriage after the first, then Draco, then two more miscarriages before we gave up). He had come back from some meeting and when I told him that I again wasn't pregnant, Lucius had hissed that he should have better married a woman who could have given him more sons, so he wouldn't have to rely on the spoilt weakling I had born him to carry on the Malfoy line. Shocked to the core by my husband's contempt for me and our son, I had done something of which I'm not proud of: I had scolded Draco for his stupidity when he had crashed with the broom and even though it had clenched my heart, I had told the healer to leave a reminder mark. Draco had been stunned but had stopped his crying immediately.

I saw at the way Draco looked over to me, how surprised he was at my tone when I addressed my sister. While he was growing up, my sister Andromeda was never talked about. To see that I had disappointed feelings, feelings at all to any of my family members, was a surprise to him. That I didn't really have any loving feelings toward Bella was no secret. Bella would have stabbed you in the back if you didn't show the proper snivelling for her beloved Lord, so of course, I was always guarded around her.

Andromeda shrugged and answered my question. "The eagerness, the fanaticism to serve this inhumane monster gives bad vibes and it wafted through our entire house, when I grew up there. I didn't realize it, until I met Ted," she explained. "It drew me to him. His energy was so clear, so benign. After the power hungry household of the Blacks, he was like a breath of fresh air. There was no going back after I sensed him for the first time, and he let me in."

Power hunger is right, I sighed in my mind. And see where it got us. Our reputation, our status is in shreds.

"Does Potter do that, too?" Draco inquired harshly and surprised me.

What was he thinking, I wondered. Did he think back to the first times he met Harry Potter and Potter refused to take his hand? I was so upset. And Lucius had been so angry. It would have been the perfect opportunity to pull Potter over to us and Lucius had been so disappointed because Draco had screwed that up. Did he wonder if maybe it hadn't been his fault that Potter refused? Had Potter perhaps sensed the willingness to follow the ugly dogma of a monster in Draco? If that was the case, Draco couldn't really have done anything.

His Aunt regarded him thoughtfully. "Harry Potter senses and sees things, but he does not perceive energies like I do. He will make a great godfather for little Teddy here, when he relays his sense of the human nature to him."

Draco nodded, accepting her answer and explanation deep in thought, and was only half aware therefore, what her words had done to his aunt. Although she had refused my commiseration, talking about it at length had driven the point again that almost her entire family was gone, her daughter, her son-in-law and her beloved husband, and that she was going to raise her daughter's son on her own and she sagged in grief. I embraced her: "Meddy, I'm so sorry. You will not be alone. I'll help where I can." I would do for her what she hadn't done for me all those years ago. Talk about karma.

Bellatrix had always been the odd one out, the oldest but not responsible, always a little unhinged, with her boy ploys, teasing them, intriguing them, reeling them in _(A/N: read the story of BrunelleWeasley, Love me dead. It's about Bellatrix and somebody else (F.L.), I'm not saying who. It had me shiver, it was so good. In that story, she is how I imagine her as a younger woman. I read a drabble of Bellatrix's Boggart somewhere as well, and how it would be her father, because he abused her. It seems very likely to me that something dramatic would have happened to her to make her so unhinged but that's just as an aside: this is not her story)._

I hadn't been interested in boys until much later and I had been focused on Lucius Malfoy right away. He was a few years older and he had shown his interest in me when I was fourteen and he had hit adulthood and was required to select a wife. I had been flattered that he chose me. Obviously, he had waited until I had finished school and wooed me during that time but then we had married right away. He had been extremely handsome (he still was, in a way) and the Malfoy name demanded some respect. My parents had been over the moon. But up until Lucius came into my life, I had been thick and thin with Meddy. And now I wanted her back. Now that the war was over and all rules overthrown, I wanted back what was good for me. My sister was a pureblood just as much as I was. There was no harm. Blood traitors. What did that even mean, blood traitors? Either you had pure blood or you didn't. Honestly. The Weasleys, you ask? Well, they just had no class.

Andromeda turned into my embrace. But when her gaze went over her grandson, sleeping in his basket, she stopped, startled. "Why is Teddy's hair purple?" she remarked hoarsely.

She looked up at the two young people, her nephew and the young woman next to him, both of them frozen as if they'd been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. My sister took in how close they sat to each other and how her nephew had possessively put his arm behind Hermione's back. I could see her brain waves turning, adding information together, coming to conclusions. She knew, they had not been friends while in school together, and she had met Hermione as a friend of Harry Potter's. It was more than odd that her nephew, the heir of the noble house of Malfoy, and Harry Potter's best friend, a muggleborn, should be so close now. And then the penny dropped.

"You two are adjuncted."

Draco's temper flared up. "Mother," he turned to and started berating me for a likely indiscretion. I looked back at him defiantly. Who did he think he was, raving at me? I wasn't the one who adjuncted with a mudblood. Honestly, he couldn't have adjuncted with a nice pureblood girl like Astoria? He had to pick Hermione Granger and make things immensely difficult. Who was he to rave? The Malfoy heir, right. But I was his mother, for Morgaine's sake. Show some respect, boy. But the only thing I did was raising my hands defensively, saying: "I didn't say anything."

I imagined that my appal over his adjunction with a mudblood was clearly written in my face, however, and while Andromeda and Draco were distracted by their discourse, I saw Ms Granger watching and assessing me. She was smart enough to know that although I behaved politely I didn't like her one bit. Oh, I had greeted her. But I didn't have a choice, not after Draco's sneaky trick.

It's not that I disliked her as a person. She was certainly smart and probably nice enough, her manners were fine and although she looked a bit plain a beautician likely could have done something with her face. And her clothes, goodness. One couldn't even see if she had a body in all those voluminous jumpers. What I didn't like about her was her meddling in my family affairs. My Draco had been (according to the Greengrasses, he wasn't anymore) engaged to a perfect pureblood girl and it would have been just perfect. My job would have been perfectly and entirely done with his marriage. I could have sat back and observed my grandchildren running around in the Manor. But no, she had to come along and snatch Draco's attention away from his duties to his family. I didn't know how she'd done it but I was going to find out. Yes, you better fidget over there on the sofa.

I was as politically cunning as all Malfoys. It certainly wasn't prudent in these times of a lost war to show too much animosity toward the saviour and his friends. But I was sure she perceived my anger that she had spoilt my son's engagement to a promising pureblood girl. If looks could kill.

Just then, my attention was drawn back to Andromeda laughing exaltedly: "No, she didn't say anything. Teddy reacted to your energy. And I can feel it around you. That's why you are so attuned. How did that happen?"

Draco grumbled: "I wouldn't know why I should tell a person, I've never seen before in my life."

"Draco!" I admonished him. Manners, boy.

Ms Granger turned to him and spoke under her breath. "It's alright, Draco. She's family. And maybe she can help if she knows about energies." When he glanced over at her, she looked at him pointedly. He clenched his jaw and scowled but made no further prevarications. It pierced my heart to see him so compliant to her wishes.

But he turned to his aunt, and still grumbling, replied briefly. "Granger visited me in the hospital wing in sixth year and after another spat, the magic just exploded on us, and we adjuncted. Satisfied?"

Hermione Granger looked a little smug, seeing him comply so easily. Don't count your sheep before they are in the barn, Ms Granger, I almost growled. I haven't spoken the last word. Andromeda retorted at Draco across the table in the middle. "Why did she visit you and why did you have a spat?"

Draco motioned to the woman next to him. "Perhaps, she should answer that."

All heads turned to her and she blushed profusely, when the spotlight was on her all of a sudden. Weak.

"I… he… ." Words failed her. Weaker.

Andromeda and I lifted identical eyebrows in expectation, and it seemed to give her an angry boost of energy. "Harry accidentally used a dark curse on him and injured him badly. Draco still has the scar. A curse for enemies. And after our encounter in the classroom, and he comforted me, and I just had to see…"

The questioning eyebrows remained in place. I snorted. Why was I not surprised that Potter used a dark curse on my boy? I only heard it was an accident. And I never saw Draco's scar, he was already too old to show me. And then everything went down the drain anyway. But you? What are you, I thought. Of course, you are attracted to him, he's quite a catch. But he's out of your league, little mudblood, so don't get your hopes up.

Draco took her hand to calm her. Andromeda inhaled audibly, and I just knew she saw something in their energies. I bit my lip. Why couldn't I see it? What were they doing? Salazar Slytherin, I needed to see what she was doing to my boy, the witch.

"She saved me one night early in sixth year from a total collapse. I had returned to school, branded with the mark and with my task to kill Dumbledore and get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, and that night, it sank in for the first time what it would mean. That people, children, fellow classmates could be injured, perhaps even killed, if I succeeded, and my mother, likely father, and I, if I failed. I was a very young man and that monster made me responsible for human life and I just lost it." He felt disgusted; I saw it in his face. He was my son; I had learned his facial expressions since he was a baby. He was disgusted over his own failures, disgusted what he had been meant to do and disgusted that his own family had put him in that situation. And then Ms Granger must have done something because his features relaxed again and I heard Andromeda snort.

He glanced at Hermione next to him thoughtfully and continued his story. "Granger came upon me late at night and wouldn't leave, no matter how much I barked or snarled at her, until she could be sure I was half way able to carry on."

I closed my eyes painfully, hearing the affection in his voice when he talked about her. She saved you? Is that what happened, my boy? How could she have saved you? Why didn't you come to me? What does she have that I couldn't have given you? Or any other pureblood girl for that matter? Was it comfort you needed? Oh, for Morgana's sake, Draco, let go of her hand. You can't be that attached to her.

Hermione Granger looked back to him and spoke her piece. "And then you backed me up, whenever you ran into me, and took half the pain, when Bellatrix tortured me." Draco looked away, biting the inside of his cheek. Andromeda and I both inhaled sharply in surprise.

"Yeah, well, I owed you," he answered her. "You've been there for me, whenever I needed you."

My thoughts raced in my mind. You owed her? What could you possibly owe her? She was there for you? What about us, what about your friends, why didn't you come to us? We were right here, you ungrateful child.

But when I started out with "Draco, you did what…," my older sister silenced me with a hand in the air.

"Was that before or after the adjunction?" Both young adults stared at her.

"Before and after," two voices answered her.

"Hm. You still haven't told me, why you had a spat when you adjuncted," Andromeda reminded them.

Draco answered this time. "She turned my whole world upside down with her tolerance, and she said, she didn't consider me an enemy anymore and that's when I lost it. Again. I seem to be doing that a lot around you," he turned back to Ms Granger with wide eyes. She gave him an encouraging smile. "Potter had sliced me open, not accidentally," he added, when he heard her inhale, "but without knowing what it would do exactly, I give him that. So, I was in the hospital wing, and while I was brooding on who was friend and who was enemy, Hermione came in and told me that her enemy lines had blurred."

I huffed mentally and sank back against the backrest of the sofa. Oh, please, making excuses for Potter? Who are you and what did you do with my Draco? Losing it. She's making you lose your head. Or perhaps the dark magic Potter used on you affected your brain as well. That has to be it. I'll take you to St. Mungo's and we'll have your head examined. You just wait. We'll find the damage and repair it and you'll be right back normal.

But my huff must have been audible because Draco looked up at me. I saw from the corner of my eyes how his head snapped up. When he saw me reclining back, looking the other way to hide my face, he made a tiny noise smacking his lips to catch my attention. When I turned to him, he sent me a very dark look. I'd never seen him look at me that way. This was not a way a boy would look at his mother. This was the look of a man seeing something he didn't like at all; a powerful and dangerous man that you better not risk displeasing. I recoiled in shock. What did I do? Not even Lucius had ever looked that displeased at me.

Hermione Granger smiled at him and he turned back to her. "Truth be told, you woke up from a nightmare, when you found me next to your bed. I got there about five minutes before you woke up, considering if I should wake you or not, and watched you moaning and whimpering in your dream. You said things like "D' Lord", which I took to be the Dark Lord, and "m'ther", which I understood to be your fear for your mother. You were drenched in sweat. I didn't want to embarrass you by addressing your dream, but the fact that you had nightmares about your task and your qualms in the classroom, showed me more than anything, that we were not really on opposite sides of the war. We were both children and pawns. And for that reason, you could not be an enemy anymore. That didn't go down well with you. And then your whole magic came toward me."

Nightmares? Oh, my poor boy, having nightmares from that monster. And about saving me, Merlin. You are such a good boy.

It made me a little irritated, though, that he still held Hermione Granger's eyes with his. "And you swallowed it. It lifted you up and turned purple." She nodded. "Madam Pomfrey came in and sent for the headmaster and McGonagall and Snape came right with him. They knew exactly what was happening."

It didn't really matter to them that they had an audience, it seemed. They didn't even notice that they talked to themselves more than to us, my sister and me. Andromeda smirked for herself, eyeing the two love birds across from us. Yes, of course. I was disgusted and I didn't want him with Hermione Granger for the long term but I wasn't blind. All fighting against it didn't change, that I'd never seen Draco so intimate with any woman or girl. It was clear in their faces: they had already shared their magic with the adjunction, then their bodies (gross), now they could share their minds. Salazar, give me strength. He was falling for the little mudblood.

"Hm," Andromeda made, when they finished their tale, reminding them that they were not alone and had to keep their hands to themselves in company. Thank Merlin. Draco turned back to his aunt. Hermione turned with him. Disgusting their synchronicity. "How can you feel it around us?" Draco asked his aunt.

Andromeda tilted her head, smirking. "I just see the energy. In colour. I see your blue wafting around her red, turning in whichever direction she turns. And now, that I'm looking for it I see the purple as well, around you, between you, and even within your magic. As attuned as I am to the energies around people, I see your two energies are streamlined. That's what I noticed, right when you came in. Usually, I feel the friction between two people. Your energies should be totally opposite, being man and woman, pureblood and muggleborn, on opposite sides of the war and so on. But they are not. They flow, as if they are one and the same energy. Like something went over it with a fine comb and brushed them gently in the same direction. That normally only happens to people who share body and soul with each other." She smirked knowingly. Urgh.

They exchanged another uncertain glance, perhaps little guiltily. Whatever they had been doing, they had not expected anybody to see. It was time to bring it back to the topic at hand. He was supposed to be nicely engaged to Astoria Greengrass, for Merlin's sake, making me one happy mama.

"Draco, what is going on? How could you possibly have broken your engagement? What have you done? You've been away for five days, and although you don't need to account your time to me, I was rather astonished when Deezy came to me yesterday morning, and told me where you were. And when I heard, you had been at St. Mungo's before for three days, sitting at Hermione Granger's side, well, I can't tell you enough how upset I was. And this whole issue with the Greengrasses, what happened, what are we going to do? Please, explain yourself."

"Well," Draco started slowly, addressing me hesitantly, "let's just say that the Greengrasses are an issue we will have to deal with." He exchanged another uncertain glance with Hermione, who smiled back equally uncertain.

I gasped. He was really disengaged? "It's true? But how… why… when…? How did you do that?"

Draco explained. "It's a long story, mother. On the last mission, Hermione was hit with an unknown spell. Potter begged me on his knees," he ignored Hermione's twitch, "to participate in a last excursion, because he knew that as part of our adjunction, our magical power is fourfold. We captured the Lestrange brothers, yes, I know," he added when both Andromeda and I flinched, "and a few others, but Hermione was hit. I spent three days at St. Mungo's with her, to see if and how she would wake up, and Astoria came to visit and realized that I was literally connected to another woman with our adjunction and that I wasn't free to bind myself to her at this point. She broke off the engagement. We told her parents at the next opportunity, and then I accompanied Hermione home, when she was discharged."

"Where you consummated your relationship," Andromeda filled in with a dry expression. Ms Granger blushed and Draco looked a little smug. Ah, Andromeda, I didn't need to know. Now, I'll have to obliviate myself to get rid of the image.

"But Draco, a pureblooded engagement is not simply dissolved by one partner saying, oh, well, we made a mistake, I'll let you go," I jumped in, trying to distract myself from my sister's remark.

Draco lifted his eyebrows. "How about when both partners say it?"

I shook my head. "No, not even then. It's a binding magic that connects the magic of the two partners and it cannot be resolved, except through the death of one partner." Before Draco could answer, Andromeda threw something in.

"I think, these two are not telling us the whole story. I can feel them fidget."

Hermione Granger sighed. "Mrs Tonks, what do you know about adjunctions?"

My sister smiled. "Ah, now we are getting somewhere. Very well, I'll tell you what I know, and then you will tell me what you know, alright?" She waited for them to nod, and then continued. I resigned myself to listen quietly for a bit. This had better be good. "I know that it quadruples the power of the two adjuncted wizards or witches, and that it creates a unique magical entity with its own power, which is purple in colour, because it is combined. I know that a special bit of each carrier goes into the new entity, and that the carriers after a while feel the difference, whether they are together or separated. I've seen carriers that were thoroughly morose when separated, and completely invigorated when reunited."

"You've seen adjuncted witches or wizards?" Hermione interrupted flabbergasted. Andromeda confirmed it with a nod. "And what was their power?"

Andromeda lowered her head. "They never found out," she relayed in a grave voice. "Magda was dead, before the power of their entity unfolded."

Draco eyed her suspiciously. "How do you know so much about adjunctions?" he asked coldly.

Andromeda waved her hand dismissively: "Everybody knows about adjunctions. Most people just never experience it and therefore have nothing to mentally attach it to. It becomes some kind of legend, and then they forget about it, because it is such an obscure piece of magic." She paused and then continued. "And Ariadne Lovegood was a friend of mine."

"What?" Draco and Ms Granger shouted as if from one mouth.

My sister grinned devilishly. "How did you think I acquired all my knowledge? I got it right from the source."

"Mother, did you call her for that?" my son attacked me in a snappish tone. Really, what had all these manner lessons been for?

I reproached him with a raised eyebrow and folded my arms in front of me. "I told you, I would contact my sister to reunite with her. That was before you told me about your connection to Ms Granger. That my sister is profoundly knowledgeable in things that concern you at the moment is just a lucky coincidence. But yes, I intended to increase my knowledge eventually. With your permission, of course."

"So, who did you know who was adjuncted?" Hermione Granger interrupted again, her hunger for knowledge clearly written in her face.

"Ariadne herself and her friend Magda Prewett. Well, they only became friends after they were adjuncted. While in school, they constantly bickered. It was quite tiring after a while." Andromeda sighed.

"So, they were of equal magical strength? And how did they adjunct? What happened to them?" Ms Granger pressed on.

Andromeda frowned. "Equal magical strength? Well, they were, while leading up to, and after the adjunction. That's what happens, you know, to balance the magic out. How would the energy otherwise be able to combine itself," she lectured them.

"Wait," Draco cut in this time. Oh, for heaven's sake, what's with the interrupting? "I thought you had to be of equal magical strength to actually adjunct. That it creates friction, and that was why we fought all the time, and then with the right trigger, and we still don't know what exactly that was, it somehow sparks and explodes and adjuncts the magic of the carriers."

"Is that what she wrote finally? I never saw the book. She died before she finished it and then it got stored away in the bowels of the ministry and aggrieved as I was, I didn't go to the length to see it," Andromeda commentated.

"Yes, well, we had to get permission from the Minister personally. It helped, of course, that Hermione fought with him in the war."

Andromeda chuckled briefly, but sobered quickly, and continued. "I told her explicitly not to write that, because it's not true. I saw it in her and Magda. They were not equal at all. Magda had more discipline and strength than Ariadne, who was more of a scattered free thinker. Much like her husband still is. Poor Xeno. Nothing ever got done in that house. But she wanted to finish the book after Magda was killed. It was to be their legacy, so to say."

She shook her head. "It's putting the cart before the horse, to say the carriers need to be of equal strength. I believe, Ariadne concluded that from the knowledge that two of the Hogwarts founders were adjuncted, and they were known to have fairly equal strength, but I'm fairly certain, it's not a requisite. After all, the magic finds itself two individuals to create something unique and stronger than any individual could be. The magic aligns itself and equals itself out, in the months or years leading up to the adjunction, to create a true combination. It's actually quite possible that all the Hogwarts founders were found to be eligible for an adjunction by the magic, so their magic was levelled, thus their fighting, but only two adjuncted."

Hermione Granger and Draco were stunned speechless. I could see it in their eyes; they thought everything they knew went up in smoke. They had thought that they had been destined to adjunct, because of their equal strength, and nobody had doubted that. Draco as a pureblood from a wizarding family quite old was sure to have powerful magic, and Ms Granger had shown time and again that her discipline and strong educated mind opened her every magical door there was. Yes, I am woman enough to admit that. So what? But now, they were back to square one. If they had not been equal in magical strength, why did they adjunct? I would have snickered maliciously because of their confusion but I wanted to know myself, of course.

"So, why do magical folks adjunct? Why did Magda and Ariadne adjunct?" Hermione managed to question through her confusion.

Andromeda hesitated with her answer. "I don't know why exactly two magical beings adjunct. The magic chooses the sources for an adjunction. You know, magic attaches itself to its carrier in a way that it matches his or her person. Or their soul, if you want to go all metaphysical. That's why some wizards are good with defensive spells and others with taking care of plants or animals. Dark magic will more likely come from Slytherin because their cunning approach to life will attract dark magic, whereas Gryffindors bravery and morality attracts a different kind of magic. This is only meant in likelihoods. Not all Slytherins will become dark and not all Gryffindors will jump in front of a charging dragon. And I know there have been outliers in every house: Gryffindors who were immensely cunning and sneaky, Slytherins who were great herbologists and Hufflepuffs who invented dark spells. Not to mention other countries, where the separation in four houses doesn't apply. The magic, however, prepares its choices carefully, it levels their magic. I've seen that happening with Magda and Ariadne. Then, they adjuncted while fighting over their work styles, when they started on their book. I'm not certain what triggered it. As I said, Magda was much disciplined, and Ariadne was not. I believe she lost some notes. But I was only told about it, I wasn't there when it happened. As to the why it happens at all, I can only guess that magic itself creates something unique and necessary for the universal balance. Magic, as an energy form, seeks energetic balance. And sometimes, to further the balance overall, magic needs to create an extra power."

"For the universal balance," Draco sneered.

Andromeda smiled. "Yes, magic, energy as such, balances itself out universally. There is a limited amount, although too mind-bogglingly large for us to comprehend, and it doesn't deplete, but it changes and spreads out equally. It's very hard to measure. There is balance in each wizard and across all witches and wizards and across all humans and across all beings within each species as well and across all. Sometimes, there is no balance in you, and then you feel it. You feel restless, off kilter, frazzled. Until you've balanced it out again. Usually there is some less in one place, and there is some more in another, and then it flows. Sometimes there is more negative energy contained in one place, like in a strong wizard or witch. And then there is more positive energy somewhere else contained in another wizard, for example. But it doesn't have to be in one person." She didn't need to say who she was talking about. They all understood which extremely strong wizards she meant. "It flows from stronger to weaker to balance, to level, to even out. Overall, it's a null sum."

Well, I'll be. And my Draco was part of this energy balance game? I was a little stunned. But I was quickly distracted again.

"So, if Voldemort and Dumbledore were in a balance, what role did Potter have to play?" Draco sneered.

Andromeda Tonks looked down at the baby basket with her grandson who was, unbelievably for a baby, still asleep. "I believe that was it, they were balanced and they couldn't entirely defeat each other. But Voldemort's negative energy was stacking up the more powerful he became, with his followers contributing, and it created a negative energy hole that needed to be fixed. Although Dumbledore was extremely powerful, I believe that Voldemort's negativity needed more positive energy, more altruism, more anti-power to annihilate it."

Ms Granger understood and added quietly: "Harry was willing to sacrifice his life to save us all."

Andromeda nodded solemnly: "Yes, that would do."

Draco glanced disquietly at the young woman next to him: "Was that why they brought him back for dead from the forest?"

Hermione Granger looked far away in reminiscence and shivered, but still said: "Yes." Draco inhaled and exhaled. I in- and exhaled equally forceful. I remembered, of course: the incident and my role in it. All I wanted was to reunite my family, find Draco. If I had to aid Potter for that … . I'd do it again without a second thought.

Before Draco could say any more, his cat chose that exact moment to come in and make her presence known, by rubbing on Draco's legs. Draco bent down and picked her up with a smile, scratching her neck. She seemed to quite like it, settled on his thighs and turned her head so Draco would scratch an ear.

"Hullo, Gwenny. Didn't I tell you I would bring Granger to meet you? Well, here we go, Gwenny meet Hermione Granger, Granger, I know you've dragged her out from under the dresser, but you've never been officially introduced. This is Gwenny."

Hermione Granger grinned at Draco and I could tell that she liked Draco's new affinity to cats and to Gwenny in particular. I had been a little reserved when he had brought the cat home that had adopted him in a forsaken shack when her previous owner had been detained. But Draco had made it clear that the cat was going to stay. It never bothered me, so I let it be. Ms Granger turned to the cat and held out a hand for her to sniff.

"Hello, Gwenny, I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, officially. I hope my dragging you from safety under the dresser will not affect our friendship. I would like to know how you managed to ensnare Draco Malfoy. He's usually not a cat person."

Gwenny eyed her suspiciously for a moment and stretched her head forward to sniff Hermione's hand. Then she looked up at her owner, as if to ask "Shall I?"

Draco nodded to his cat: "Go ahead. Granger is all goody-two-shoes. You can't go wrong with her."

Ms Granger tittered. "I'm still amazed how you do that with the cats. Even Crookshanks likes you, and he likes no other men. I think he's always been jealous that they could take away my attention from him." Gwenny had meanwhile submitted to Ms Granger's attentions and let herself be scratched under the chin and seemed to enjoy it very much.

Hermione Granger added on: "Thanks for taking such good care of him, Gwenny."

Gwenny purred and Draco smiled down at the two females closest to him. And I choked, seeing my son so at ease. It couldn't be true. What in the world was happening?

"Mother, are you quite alright?" Draco remarked on the noise I was making. I swallowed.

"Absolutely, Draco. I was just wondering if we should get started with lunch. This is after all what I invited my sister here for."

"We wouldn't mind lunch, either, wouldn't we, Hermione?"

When "Hermione" shook her head, I said: "Very well, then, I'll let Tomsky know that we will need two extra settings. If you would proceed to the Dining room, please?" I motioned to the adjacent door, which had appeared magically, and made my way out of the room. I didn't explain myself why I didn't call the house elf into the Drawing room for the instructions. But nobody commented on the fact that I needed to leave the room to powder my nose, basically; an unnecessary feat in the wizarding world. Fact was that in light of my ever changing world, I simply needed a minute to myself.

Out in the hallway, I called Tomsky to me and informed him of the new arrangement. After he had disappeared, I leaned against the wall and dabbed my forehead with my fingertips. It couldn't be. Draco had dissolved his magical engagement to Astoria and was entangled with Hermione Granger. Was he that powerful? How had he done that? What was happening here? Was he bewitched? Had she fed him a potion? They had worked closely together for some time, surely she could have snug him a potion in the lunch. No, he normally wasn't eating lunch. In his tea maybe? No, the heat would make the potion ineffective. Well, she was a powerful witch, she must have bewitched him. What was I to do? I would confer with Andromeda later. She saw his energy, she would know if it was changed. Oh, Draco, what did she do to you? Poor Astoria, whatever happened? I needed to go in and observe some more. Perhaps I could find some evidence of her interference.

.

_A/N: It is becoming too bothersome to write out Narcissa's endless gushing about her Draco and what she expects for him. We've already learned a lot about her. I think you got a sufficient idea about her thoughts, and the environment Draco grew up in. She'll have more to say later. The other focus in this chapter is on the energy (thus, the title) and we'll change perspective. Alright?_

.

While Narcissa Malfoy was in the hallway, trying to get a grip on her emotions, Draco put Gwenny down on the floor again and took Hermione's one hand to pull her up and lead her over to the next room. His Aunt followed, the baby basket floating next to her.

"I'm not surprised that you are good with cats, Hermione. You are a kindred soul to them," Andromeda Tonks took the conversation up again, when they were seated around the large table in the Manor Dining room. Draco had pulled out the chair next to his usual place for Hermione. His Aunt had taken place on the other side of the table, next to where Narcissa was going to sit, on the right of the head of the table, which remained empty. It would have been Draco's right to sit there, with the head of the house permanently absent, but then he would have wanted Hermione to sit on his right, as was custom for the woman of the master of the house. This was still his mother's seat, though, and he didn't want to raise a ruckus over this with Hermione's first time in the Manor. There was time to adjust to that later. He therefore took his usual seat on the left side from the head as the heir of the house and put Hermione next to him. "I can see your energy aligning with the cat's energy," Andromeda finished.

"Oh, well, I've always been good with cats," Hermione said modestly.

"Well, it's in your energy, and that's what the cats react to in Draco as well," Andromeda went on. "Through the alignment of your energies, part of your energy, your kindness is reflected in Draco's energy. I saw it when the cat sat on his lap. She responded to your energy, Hermione, but since you are female and she is female, she went for the male part of your alignment and she's rather protective of her owner because his and your energy resonate so well with hers. She feels rather comfortable."

"So, Gwenny is with me because she feels Granger's energy in mine?" Draco asked perplexed.

"Yes and no, Draco. She's with you because you are the male part of you two, but also because she is attached to the cat-kind energy in you both. That's likely the cause why Hermione's male cat also reacts well to you, even though you are male," Andromeda explained kindly.

"Kindness," Draco mumbled. "Kind soul. Granger, that's it."

Upon Hermione's questioning look, he carried on. "You are my exact opposite in that regard. I'm not kind and I told you, I'm the one with the tarnished soul. Yin and Yang. We make one whole. We complete each other. Another dimension where we are on opposite ends, making the compow stronger."

Hermione Granger was confused and refuted him. "That's not true. I'm not always kind."

Draco glanced back exasperatedly. "Overall, Granger. Wouldn't you say, you were a kind person?"

"With my bossiness? I don't think so," Hermione mumbled.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Who got your trio out of trouble? Who followed Potter through thick and thin, helping him to achieve his goal?"

"Ron and I," she pouted.

"Always?"

She hesitated.

"See? It was you all the way helping Potter." And as if that was not enough argument, he added: "And who stayed with me that night in the classroom?"

"Everybody would have done that with another upset student," Hermione said, flustered.

Draco shook his head. "No. I know at least a dozen people, who would have gleefully stepped on me while I was down. Your weasel is the first in the list."

Puzzled and flustered, Hermione ignored his comment about Ron and asked instead: "But what does that give us? What can the compow make out of my "kindness" and your touch with the darkness?" She marked her kindness in speech marks with her hands.

"A powerful shield. It dissolves spells to shield. We are a strong defensive force, and when we work together, we shield others. Remember the six on four Death Eater fight. We finished them in seconds. When the Petrificus incapacitated us, we were able to resolve it to continue defending others."

Hermione looked sceptic. "But what about the betrothal bond? And the spell on me? There was no defensive action involve."

Draco replied, a little impatiently: "Same thing, though. We were incapacitated to work together, and the compow dissolved the spells to enable us to work together again." After all this blissful togetherness they had had over the last few days, he hadn't expected Hermione to doubt his proposition and he became a little irritated because of that.

"But it would be absolutely wrong and horrible, if it broke a legal bond for its own purposes. And the bond didn't prevent us to work together. That can't be right," Hermione countered again.

"It was wrong that it broke the bond?" Draco asked, with a furrowed brow. What was she on about? Why did she have to question everything he said, he thought.

Hermione shook her head. "No, of course, I didn't mean it like that. But theoretically, if it broke legal bonds to serve its own need, that would be illegal and very wrong."

Draco snarled. "Why do you have to negate everything I come up with?"

Hermione frowned. "You know that's not true. I've accepted your expertise on many things."

"Name one" Draco snarled.

"Well, the compow," she threw back with a frown.

"Do you know that your energies swing quite violently when you fight like that?" Andromeda chipped in. "It could make one motion sick, watching. Draco's blue basically pounds on the red."

Hermione ignored her comment for now. "And what are we supposed to shield? Voldemort is gone." She ignored Narcissa, who had just come in, flinch. "And are we done with our work, when we will have rounded up all the Death Eaters and put them in Azkaban?"

"There will always be dangers to shield others from," Draco growled.

"We were supposed to create a shield to protect innocents, that's not everybody," Hermione countered.

"You've given it a name?" Narcissa Malfoy made it known again that they were not alone. She sat at her place and soup appeared in front of them. "Enjoy your meal," she said and they started eating.

"Yes, we are calling it "compow". Draco came up with the name, when after a while it was simply too bothersome to constantly talk about "Combined magic or power, our mutual magic", etc." Hermione explained impatiently because it would have been extremely impolite to try to ignore her hostess any longer, just because Narcissa Malfoy's intensive gaze made Hermione squirm with discomfort. Hermione was quite aware that she had spoilt her hostess's life plans for her son, in a way, and that she held Hermione responsible.

"It dissolves spells?" Andromeda threw in, between spoons.

"Yes, our compow seems to have the ability to dissolve spells on us. I accidentally broke a Petrificus, then we disintegrated Death Eater wards, it broke the spell on Hermione, although we didn't really know what that was, and last but not least, it broke the betrothal bond when we…well, it broke the bond," Draco finished when Hermione kicked him under the table. He glared at her and sent a silent "Ow" in her direction. Hermione glared back. She was not going to have him tell his mother, what exactly they had done when the bond broke. And while he was still engaged, too.

It didn't go unseen, however. Narcissa could barely contain herself: "Wait a minute. Your, whatever you call it, compow, it broke your marriage bond to Astoria?"

Hermione lowered her head to the table top and bit her lip, whereas Draco held his mother's gaze. He was so used to lie in somebody's face that it didn't bother him at all to hold eye contact. But they both hoped, it wasn't going to be necessary to go into details, how the compow had broken that particular spell. "Yes," they answered in unison.

"Hm," Andromeda made again, quickly distracting from the circumstances and the enormity of the bond breaking. "So, let me get this straight. She comforted you one night, when you were at your lowest. You adjuncted, when Hermione proclaimed that you were not her enemy anymore and you were furious at her for mixing up your black and white world. You took part of her torture pain here in the Manor, and then you came to work your mutual magic together. What did you do with it?"

"We created a spell to track Death Eaters." Narcissa's mouth twitched but she didn't say anything. She was no friend of Death Eaters either.

Andromeda raised an eyebrow appreciatively. "How did you do that?"

"Well, we used a pointer spell and focused it on Draco's Dark Mark; that took some preparation because we had to find out its exact magical pattern, and then we taught the modified pointer spell to find other Dark Marks on a map," Hermione explained.

"Very good," Andromeda gave the praise out easily. "And what else did you do with it, except creating a tracking spell and breaking spells?"

Draco and Hermione frowned at each other. "Not much more, since we didn't know what exactly we could do with it," Hermione offered. Draco continued: "We explored it. We can move it. We can, so to say, "dive down" on its level and see it. It changed since we broke the bond, well, its relation to our magical fields changed. In the beginning, it was separating them, and now, they moved together and it straddles them. We can move our magical fields into and over each other's. But for the abilities of the compow, we have no idea besides the spell breaking. Which would actually be something. But since we don't know which spells exactly it would break and what for, we are quite certain we don't understand the full power of it, yet."

They had finished the soup and moved on to a risotto of selected crustaceans. As it was in a magical household, the dishes appeared magically in front of them as soon as the last had finished the previous course, and were replaced by the next one.

Draco made certain that their glasses were always refilled, like a good host.

"What do you mean, "What for"? Would it need a purpose, this combined magic?" Draco's mother had followed their discussion closely. She was continuously overruled in her own house, but the discussion about her son's and Ms Grangers shared magic was too incredible to miss. She would come back to the implications of Draco's bond breaking later again. A marriage bond had never been broken before. It opened up a whole new can of worms.

"That's what I said, mother," Draco mumbled and send his mother a smile.

"Well, Cissy, if a magical combination is created to serve the universal balance, as I suspect, there may indeed be a reason for each creation. You have reason to believe that it serves a purpose?" Andromeda Tonks chimed in.

Both, Draco and Hermione nodded, thinking about the dream they'd had.

"And there's another thing," Hermione continued their bizarre story. "When the compow broke the betrothal bond, Draco shook like he was in a fever. And we found, afterward that it had taken the imprint of Draco's Dark Mark as well."

Another sharp intake of breath was heard from the other side of the table. "My world, if you will continue telling us shocking news like this, I will need something to strengthen my nerves. Tomsky." Narcissa Malfoy clapped her hands and the elf appeared before her chair and bowed deeply. "Bring us the firewhiskey, please, and, how many glasses will we need?" She looked around. Draco raised his hand, but Andromeda and Hermione both shook their respective heads. "And two glasses, thank you," she concluded.

"Carry on," she said when the house-elf had disappeared again, only to re-appear two seconds later with a carafe of a golden-brown liquid and two crystal snifters. "You were saying that your compow eliminated this dark spot on my Draco?"

Hermione furrowed her brow. Draco saw this and put a hand on her arm. "Mother" he mouthed with a smirk, when she looked his way irritated. He was deeply amused that Hermione would even react to his mother's insinuation that she had any right to claim Draco as hers. Hermione took a deep breath. Smiling, Draco pushed his firewhiskey glass toward her and she took a tiny sip. It made her eyes tear up and she shuddered. Draco grinned and took the glass back, then turned to the other side of the table, with the intention to pick up the thread himself, before their interaction became too obvious. It was too late, he noticed, when he raised his head to look directly into his mother's shocked and his aunt's highly amused face. He smirked and spoke:

"We discovered through our compow that the Dark Mark leaves an imprint in a wizards' or witches magic and that is sucks energy. That is likely the reason why they became so fanatical and haggard after years. When it dissolved the betrothal bond, for some reason, it took the imprint of the Mark with it, and that's another thing we have no idea why it came to pass." To rectify his smirk over their puzzlement, he added: "That's not to say, that we don't rejoice over the absence of it."

Narcissa noted very well that her son spoke in the first plural form. So, not only did he break his engagement to his pureblood wife-to-be but he had put Hermione Granger already in her place. What in the world of Salazar Slytherin happened here?

Andromeda looked at him shrewdly. How did it come that the Black women could look so sinisterly shrewd? "How did that feel, the solving of the bond?"

Draco felt uncomfortable and his smirk fell as if attached to a rock. It was not an experience he liked to repeat, not even mentally. Even with Granger right next to him. "Like hellfire. It was ripped out of me," he retorted.

Andromeda nodded understandingly: "I can imagine. A betrothal bond is a connection between the two magic fields of the betrothed. It is not entirely benign. As I said, each person's magic is attached to the soul, to your person; that's why you can't split it magically or siphon it away without destroying the person. Yes, even Voldemort suffered for it," she supplied to the shocked faces looking at her. "If you ripped that out, it must have felt like ripping out your heart and I'm not surprised that you trembled down to your toes."

"Yes. That's exactly what it felt like," Draco confirmed subdued. Hermione touched his arm comforting.

"All the more incredible it is that you were able to break it. Because for that exact reason, it is unbreakable." Draco exchanged another glance with Hermione who looked back just as clueless as he was. They couldn't tell why, only that it had happened. It was part of the deal with the compow, the breaking of spells.

"We can't tell you how it happened to break. The compow overlays the spells, takes the pattern and cracks it, and then it dissolves, that's all we know." Hermione explained.

"And it took the Dark Mark with it, you say?" Andromeda confirmed.

They nodded. This insignificant movement of the head seemed to be the only thing they could do in this overwhelming situation. They received a nod in return.

"You're right. I only see a residual of dark magic in you, Draco. There's an imprint of an energetic funnel but no actual draining. It has been as good as eradicated. What is that going to do to your tracking work? What if you have to renew your spell? Can you do that without the existence of the mark in you?" Andromeda observed snidely.

Draco raised his eyebrows appreciatively. His aunt was sharp. He wasn't too surprised, though. The Black women were intelligent, that was common knowledge. Too bad, there were none left and that Bellatrix had gone around the bent before Molly Weasley had offed her. "Good point. Fortunately, the compow took the pattern of the imprint of the mark and it is stored in it. We can redo the spell whenever we like." Hermione nodded in confirmation.

Andromeda's eyebrows almost reached the ceiling. "It takes and saves magical patterns? Spell patterns?"

Both, Draco and Hermione nodded for the umpteenth time.

"It breaks spells on you, you can send it out to break spells, and it takes patterns of the spells it breaks?" They nodded again.

"My, you've got a powerful tool there." This time, they shrugged.

"So, when you can send it out, can it break spells somewhere else?" Andromeda Tonks inquired further.

Hermione and Draco raised their eyebrows and looked at each other. "We don't know, we've never tried to do anything further than a few inches (_A/N: about ten centimetres, for metrics_) away. We've send it out over each other and over the wards and we only stood no further than that apart. We really don't know," Hermione explained. A contemplative pause ensued.

Hermione's curiosity got the better of her. "How can you see dark magic? How does it look like in comparison to other magic?"

Andromeda Tonks puckered up her eyebrows. "Well, as you already observed yourselves, dark magic requires energy, that is, heat to happen, literally the energy from a temperature change. If you ever want to pay attention to it, it feels colder in the air after dark magic has happened. That's where its name comes from actually. In ancient time, it drew on the heat of the fires surrounding. These fires served as light source as well as heat source and with the magic drawing away the heat, dimming the fires in the process, it became darker as well, so they called it dark magic. I can see that energy change. Dark magic is visible in a wizard as a funnel of energy, draining away the inherent temperature of a human being. That was one of the reasons why Voldemort had to make himself almost inhuman and why he almost created an energy hole in our world."

"No wonder I always felt cold," Draco mumbled. Narcissa Malfoy looked like her heart was breaking in two, but she didn't have a chance to say anything again, when her sister asked: "Do you feel warm now?"

Draco Malfoy thought for a moment on the fact that he had felt increasingly warmer since Hermione Granger had come into his life. Each time she had reached out to him, he had felt warm; each time he had done something for her, he had felt warm, even if it had only been to back her up in view of the deeds of the eternally stupid weasel; as if she was the cure to his permanent cold. He remembered the shock he had received when Granger had touched his mark that one time in their office at the ministry. And then he had felt warmth when she touched it again.

He looked at the expectant faces of the women around the table with him: his mother's heart going out for him, his aunt's inquisitiveness and Hermione's soothing acceptance, and he realized: this was his family. "Yes," he said astounded over his own revelation, "I feel quite warm now."

The responding beaming smiles from the women would have been enough to light a dark room.

Hermione was on a quest, though, to finally find more information about this obscure piece of magic that had accompanied and puzzled her for so long.

"Mrs Tonks, how can Teddy sense and react to it? He's just a baby," she questioned.

Andromeda sighed: "My "talent" to see energies and their changes came out in Nymphadora as a talent to change her appearance and express herself that way. You understand that emotional changes are nothing but changes of the energy levels and balance within us?" She waited for everybody to nod their heads before continuing. "Teddy luckily inherited her Metamorphosing but he also got my sensitivity. I believe he reacts to emotional vibes as well. I noticed him changing his hair colour accordingly to the energy changes around him. Nymphadora did that only occasionally and only while she was little. The more she used her talent consciously, the more she lost the connection to feel the energy. And that is something, only I would have been able to see." She looked far away in reminiscence of her daughter. "But it enabled her to see the good in Remus."

"We all saw the good in Remus Lupin," Hermione objected.

Andromeda focused on her. "Did you, now? Never thought of him as a werewolf, as a dangerous beast?"

"No," Hermione said steadfastly. "Not even when he transformed in front of my eyes. I knew it was dangerous and we sought safety, but I never thought he was a bad person for it."

Andromeda contemplated, looking at Hermione. Or she looked at Hermione's energy. Nobody but Andromeda could tell exactly, but after a long minute, she released her breath loudly and said: "I believe you."

"You better," Hermione mumbled. Draco had followed the exchange with growing trepidation. He had thought Lupin had been a dangerous beast. He had been an excellent teacher, bringing out the best in all students, but he had been a beast. And he was a little ashamed for it, that Granger could stand so steadfastly up for somebody else, and he couldn't. Would she always accept everything where he only focused on the worst in each person? Although, come to think of it, her acceptance and his focus …

Their lunch moved on from the main course to a mixed platter of different cheese and cut up fruit. Hermione had more questions and she spoke up again, distracting Draco from his thoughts. "Well, we know that there is a connection between magical energy and emotions. Everybody knows that for some magic, you need to be in a certain emotional stage, ergo have a certain energy level. But what exactly does that do to the casters to be on a certain emotional level when they are connected?" Hermione wanted to know further, her face pulled into a sceptical frown.

Draco frowned as well. Was she still on the thought that the magic dominated her and her feelings? He thought they had cured that particular doubt.

Andromeda smiled knowingly. "What do you mean, Hermione? Do you want to know if the magic affects you, if it changes you? Because I'm quite certain that it would."

Draco groaned and burrowed his face in his hands. There they went again.

Hermione smiled. "No, no, that's not what I mean. The compow gives us access to more energy and to each other's magic and it is exhilarating. Of course, it would change me and Draco as well, it's only natural." Draco's head snapped up. No?

Hermione gave him a sideway smile. "No, what I mean is, with the access to each other's magic, what does it do to us to be so connected? You said yourself that you've seen carriers who suffered from their separation. I was almost paralysed when Draco and I stopped working together. And I can feel by a change in the air if something is not right. I cannot feel him or his magic, unless I really get in touch with it, but I can feel if something is wrong, if something displeases him, or even pleases him, hints of emotions. I can't describe it better."

"Ah, yes, I believe I know what you mean. Well, that would have to do with the fact that your energies are aligned. They flow as one as I already said, and when you are in concordance with each other you'll feel it. Likewise if you are not; if one of you is in disagreement, he or she is energetically out of balance for your whole and therefore, a part of your energies is in misalignment and that would feel "wrong" to you. I don't know if with some practice you may or may not be able to feel actual emotions but you'll definitely feel these misalignments."

"What about the fact what we feel when separated? Because I felt miserable not being able to work with Hermione," Draco argued. He ignored his mother loud intake of breath. His mother had just seen a huge elephant in the room but decided quickly against mentioning it.

"Well, I could imagine that you missed the invigorating effect of the energy but that's more psychological than magical. There is no physical reason to feel a need to complete the energy as such. I know there've been discussions about this; the common opinion, that is, Ariadne in her book believes that the carriers only feel complete when united, energetically, but as an "expert" for energy I can tell you that it's unfounded, at least from the energy side. How you feel psychologically, only you'll be able to tell."

"But you said yourself that you've seen carriers that were downcast when separated and over the moon when reunited." Draco countered slightly irritated. Why had it felt so right to see Hermione again after months of separation if not for the reunited energy?

"I said they were morose when separated and invigorated when reunited, but it's not because of the adjunction. I said they feel the difference after a while. I believe it has to do with the invigorating work and the energy alignment, the extra energy. It can feel like a youth born, this extra energy you're working with. You are being doused in additional energy; that would have to have an effect. And people tend to grow closer over working it. Maybe the energetic alignment extrapolates this invigorating effect additionally but there is no reason to "complete" the energy. One other thing is, that the additionally created magic is fully functional only when both carriers are united but that has to do with the fact that it comes with abilities from both carriers. Only together both parts can work as a whole and complete the manifestation and the extra power of the adjuncted magic. See, that makes it ever more likely that it has a purpose. Only together, working for or on the purpose you get all the benefits. But it has nothing to do with the energy. Energy exists on its own, it doesn't need to be united. There is a little bit here and a little bit there," Andromeda corrected sternly. "I know, sometimes, energy is difficult to understand. But it's all very essential and basic and logic and not obscure."

When nobody said anything, she added. "It's the reason why people believe in soul mates."

"Excuse me?" Draco blustered.

"Yes, even without adjuncted, connected energy, sometimes a person's energy aligns with somebody else's energy and they feel changes in the other person's energy and it makes them soul mates, because they always know if something's wrong with the other person." She let her head sink down. "Even with my eyes closed, without seeing his energy, I could always tell if something wasn't right with Ted."

"Does that mean I'm going to feel everything she feels, eventually?" In front of his inner eye horror visions of menstrual cramps and migraines and birth pain and other ailments appeared.

Andromeda laughed, understanding his freight. "No, not at all. Only discordances of your moods."

"That would explain why I didn't feel his "pain" in the bond breaking." Hermione mused.

Andromeda nodded. "Yes. It happened to his magic. Yours and his magic are still respectively yours. You can only sense effects of out-of-balance states, maybe very extreme emotions."

Hermione inquired further: "Then how did Draco take my pain from the Cruciatus?"

This time, Andromeda shrugged: "Your guess is as good as mine."

Narcissa couldn't hold herself back. The last time it came up in conversation, she hadn't been "allowed" to ask: "Draco, how on earth did you do that? And why?"

Draco answered his mother quietly but looked at Hermione sharply: "Nobody was paying any attention to me. I just could. I couldn't let crazy Bella torture her. Not after all she'd done for me. I don't know how I did it. I just pulled on a strand flapping in the air."

"Did you recognize them when they were brought in?" Narcissa inquired quietly. "We never broached the subject, in case anybody overheard and the less we knew the less the D.., hm, You-know-who could read in our minds, but I always wondered."

Draco scoffed. "Of course, I recognized them. It was clear as day who they were. I went to school for six years with them. Come on, mother, you recognized them and you had barely seen them more than two or three times. But everybody was too afraid to make a mistake. And I used that. I couldn't let them fall into his hands. Potter was the only chance we had. And then luckily, Bella went off on a rant when she saw the sword. And everybody was too distracted by her screeching."

Warm. He felt so warm. Hermione hadn't broken the eye contact, and all through his talking she had held his gaze. Not daring to touch him, concerned about what usually happened when they gave in to urges with each other, and in view of his mother and aunt sitting on the other side of the table, he saw nonetheless in her eyes that she understood perfectly and her gratification for what he had done and the risk he had taken. And he felt it warming him from the inside out. He felt her magic touching his since they couldn't touch each other physically right in front of his mother and aunt, but it had the same effect. Hermione's magical touch tingled through his belly and constricted his loin and made his head woozy. If they had been alone at that moment, he was sure he would have jumped and dragged her over to the nearest surface to have his way with her. But he couldn't because they were not alone and so, he had to bite his lip and suffer in silence. Blast.

"I can't explain it. It may go beyond energy, his connecting the dark magic of the spell with himself," they heard Andromeda intrude in their thoughts. "But I'm sure there is a way. Magic has its way to come out."

Hermione pulled herself away from Draco's gaze with utmost effort. She had been in danger of drowning in the clarity of his eyes but she had to find out more when she had the chance with Andromeda Tonks.

"You said, the magic chooses two wizards or witches and starts preparing them for an adjunction. How does that work? When did it start?"

Andromeda sighed in view of a likely disappointing answer. "There's no telling, Hermione, when exactly it starts. I believe it is a gradual process. It is quite possible that the magic started to equalize you for a potential adjunction as early as your first day at Hogwarts. Or when something happened between you two, something emotional. It might have been as late as that notorious night in the classroom but that's unlikely as you said you fought long before that. I don't know when exactly it might have chosen you as potential carriers of a combined magic. It could have tested each of you against other potentials as well, before it chose the perfect partner. But it makes it likely that you fought while in school, because it had already started to equalize your magical levels and it caused friction. The same likely applied to Ariadne and Magda. I just don't know for certain, because I wasn't there to see when they adjuncted. If I knew, I could probably answer the question of why exactly it happens. And I can't answer that."

When her newly recovered family and Hermione Granger were simply looking at her, each lost in their own thoughts, and no further remark was forthcoming, Andromeda picked up an old thread.

"Hm, I noticed when you two disagreed a while ago, how Draco's energy batters yours, Hermione. Are you always this accepting?"

Draco sneered: "Yeah, Granger is a real martyr when I think about what she had to put up with from the two twats."

Hermione glanced his way with blazing eyes: "Hey, they are my friends."

"Oh, yeah? If they are your friends, why did they constantly use you? As a tutor, to get them out of trouble, as a shoulder to whine on?" he growled back.

"They didn't use me, I offered what I could because that's what friends do," Hermione countered snarling.

He scoffed.

Narcissa reproached him tactfully: "I don't think it'll serve you well to call the saviour of the wizarding world, well, the world actually, a twat, Draco, dear."

He lowered his head but kept mumbling: "I'll say what I want about Saint Potter."

Hermione kicked him under the table again.

"Ow," he said and glowered at the irritating witch at his side.

Hermione huffed. "So, if Malfoy is the perfect partner to me," here she glowered back at him, "energy wise at least, do you know why he is, and what it does, our compow?"

Andromeda shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't see purpose and I don't see reasons. I can only conclude some basic rules about energy from my observations. But I can't tell people what to do. I can only see what their energy does when I stand right next to them and see it. Like I see how Draco's blue magical field pokes into Hermione's when you fight, argue or discuss things. Sometimes she holds against, and then the air bristles, like just this minute, sometimes she just takes it in and encloses it, and when she does, your "compow" glitters particularly delighted."

Hermione and Draco looked at her a little disappointed. They couldn't blame Andromeda for not knowing, but they felt they had been so close to their solution and now she couldn't say. It felt thoroughly anti-climactic, even though they had learned a lot from her. They needed to discuss the additional information. They exchanged one glance to confirm their thoughts.

Since lunch was done and their conversation with Andromeda finished, Draco and Hermione got up. "Thank you, mother for the excellent lunch. If you excuse us now," Draco said with a nod to his mother.

"Draco, where are you going? We'll have to discuss the Greengrass issue," she demanded.

"I promised Hermione to show her the Malfoy library. We'll likely do some research. And I'll show her my room." There was a certain ring to it, when he said "my room". It didn't escape Narcissa Malfoy, but she didn't blink.

"Very well, dear. Will I see you both for tea or dinner?"

Draco looked briefly at Hermione who shrugged. They had no plans as of yet.

"Possibly," he answered. "If not, we'll come and see you before we leave, alright? Aunt Andromeda, it's been delightful to have you here. I hope we can do it again in the near future."

Andromeda acknowledged his official farewell with a nod. Hermione shook her hand in thanks.

With an "Alright, dear" Narcissa Malfoy released them and they made their way from the room, with Hermione thanking her briefly for lunch. Narcissa accepted the gratitude with a nod and put her face in her hands, as soon as the door closed behind her son and the woman with him.

"To his room. He takes her to his room. A muggleborn. Of all the witches he could have had, he wants this muggleborn. Why, oh why?"

"What is the significance of his room with regards to Hermione Granger?" her sister inquired slightly amused.

Narcissa looked up at Andromeda. "He never took a woman or girl to his room. The only girls, who've ever been there, were acquainted through childhood, like Pansy Parkinson or the Greengrass girls. I believe he has been around quite a bit, as young men do, but he has taken great care not to bring any of his exploits home. And now he chose to show his room to this girl. I admit that Hermione Granger might be a good match to his intelligence but there are other intelligent young women." She grimaced and hid her face again.

Andromeda looked indulgently at her younger sister. "I don't think this is a matter of actual choosing, as in "Ene-mene-mine-moe". They are connected."

"Yes," Narcissa groaned. "But why did he have to connect with a muggleborn?"

Andromeda frowned. "Weren't you listening? The magic chooses who to connect. Draco couldn't have done anything against it. The only thing he could have done was not to fall in love with her. But it's too late for that."

Narcissa raised her head and looked wide-eyed at her long lost sister. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, Cissy," her sister scoffed. "You saw them. From what you told me, Draco is a fairly controlled, harsh, and cold young man, just like his father with a bit more hot-tempered anger, and he was anything but. These two bubble over in joy and contentment. They are in love. I saw them play their energies over each other like caresses. They may not be able to put it into words just yet, but they are connected, body and soul, and they are enjoying it. I wouldn't go to his room in the next few hours, if I were you," she finished smirking. "It was actually quite clever from him, to introduce her officially to me first. She knew me as a person on her side, so she would greet me and I her, and after me, you had to accept her in an official introduction as my younger sister. Quite clever, your boy." She chuckled.

Narcissa sent her a dark scowl. "I know that he tricked me into greeting her officially in my house. The last word to that is not spoken." Her face changed back into her grimace of disbelief. "He's falling for her, that's for sure. I saw that much. I wanted to ask you, did you see anything in their energy that indicates that she bewitched him?" When her sister shook her head with an indulgent smile, Narcissa hissed through her teeth. "She was downright possessive when I said "My Draco". Who does she think she is, claiming him?"

Andromeda grinned. "He didn't seem to mind. They played their energies over each other like gambolling dogs, while they were confessing what happened around the time of the adjunction. They enjoy their closeness."

Her sister didn't seem to hear. She was deep in thought. "He said she has been there for him, whenever he needed her. That in itself is absolutely inconceivable for my son. He never needed anybody. And if he had, he would have had a whole army of friends and family. What can she have given him that his friends and family couldn't?" Narcissa exclaimed groaning.

"Something that his friends and family couldn't give him, Cissa," Andromeda spoke quietly. "Like Ted did for me. I know we were close as young girls and our parents loved us as much as is expected in our circles but Ted, Ted was…" She had to gather her thoughts. "Ted was like a light in the darkness that I didn't know existed before I saw him. Like oxygen that I didn't know I was missing before I received it. And once I saw it, I couldn't miss it anymore. Draco might feel the same about her."

She kept on musing: "He said their magical fields moved together in the bond breaking. But spell breaking alone couldn't have moved a whole magical field. To reset your magic, something fundamental has to take place. Something emotional must have happened, something life altering. Something happened that made them closer if their energies moved together as well."

Narcissa whined with a grimace: "I can tell you what happened. They exchanged bodily fluids." She shivered. "And while he was engaged, too. The shame."

Andromeda shook her head. "You don't know that. And that alone wouldn't be enough. A bonding of some kind has to have happened, something to support their streamlined energy, something life altering, a karmic debt of some sort, a revelation that they couldn't be without each other."

"Were they drawn to each other through their connecting energy? He said he felt miserable not to work with her and totally disregarded that he might have actually missed her. Not that I want to find reasons for them to be together, because I really don't. But they've both been trying to find reasons for their closeness as if they couldn't believe it themselves. Did they have to become close, perhaps even have to fall in love? Did the magic make them?" Narcissa was grasping for straws. It simply couldn't be.

Andromeda Tonks smiled. "Had to? No. I could imagine that they were drawn to the energizing effect of the shared magic, as I said. But if they had absolutely despised each other, they could have separated and no harm done. It is like a prophecy. It is spoken and it makes sense if it comes to pass. But if nobody hears it and nobody changes his or her life for it, then nothing will happen. It gives you a chance to change something but it doesn't oblige you. And the world keeps turning."

Andromeda tilted her head and considered her sister. "But if I'm not mistaken, they don't and they didn't despise each other. And that might actually be one reason why they adjuncted. Our world certainly needs a connecting link between the dark side and the light. Harry Potter has done his part to end the war but how are we going to rebuild? What is going to be right or wrong in our new post-war world? Are we going to be entirely anti-whatever-Voldemort-was blabbing-about? Are we going to condemn all and everybody who was connected to him? Or are we going to be the bigger persons and reach hands out to mistaken people, who adhered to something they were afraid of and want to find a way back now? Like Hermione Granger has likely done that night in the classroom the two were talking about? Are we going to be able to bring the black sheep back to the fold? We won't know if we don't try." Andromeda took a deep breath after her little speech and waited for her sister to reply.

Narcissa Malfoy eyed her hands. "So, my Draco has fallen for a muggleborn for good?" she finally said quietly.

"I wouldn't rule it out, Cissy," her sister replied, smirking.

Narcissa hrmphed.

"Cissa, you know that we purebloods are dying out. In a few generations, Voldemort's issues with blood purity will have taken care of themselves if we don't mingle with non-purebloods. The entire wizarding race would die out if not for the muggleborns and half-bloods. How many more generations do you think you would have been able to continue in your pureblood ways?

Hermione Granger is as powerful a witch as they come. I don't know how their personalities match but they seem to be very good for each other. The energy around them, the fact that it was streamlined, marked it as a perfect match. They will make a powerful union. Magically, she would have to be his perfect counterpart, the way their energies acted." She let the words hover for a second.

"Say, that would be something to combine energies." Andromeda drifted off, thinking about her own words. "If they were perfect counterparts, their energies could connect like puzzle pieces. Hm." She turned her head toward the door where Hermione and Draco had just left a few minutes ago.

"What do you mean, Meddy?" Narcissa inquired.

Andromeda was deep in thoughts, but tried to deconstruct them for her sister. "Well, you know, energy is everywhere. We are made out of energy basically. But to form matter, energy needs to come in certain patterns. And to give the matter life and purpose and make it sentient beings, energy needs even more patterns.

There are basically several levels for patterns of energy in sentient beings. One is the life supporting level, the energetic exchange between cells. One is the feeling and personality level, our disposition. And in us magical folks we have the magical level. Now, this magical level is matched to our disposition still in the foetal stage. For example, a wizard who is excellent in defending against dark arts needs a certain aggression. A wizard who deals with magical animals or plants needs patience, just as a crude example. That doesn't mean he couldn't be courageous or that he'll never flip. We all come with a certain set of preferred behaviour modes and they match our personality and preferred mode of magic.

Now, we always thought that for adjunctions two particular magical beings wer chosen, particular aspects of their magic taken, they were ignited with a trigger and two magical energy fields forcefully combined to create something new. I say forcefully, because it does come with loud banging and shaking. Ariadne told me about her adjunction and whatever has been written down about adjunctions confirms this.

But, and this is the new thing that just occurred to me, if the targeted energetic combination for the adjunction can be achieved by just matching the two carriers, on whatever dimensions, they can slide together like puzzle pieces. If two magical fields matched energetically, pattern wise, like said two puzzles pieces, and perhaps the personality level as well, we have a three-dimensional puzzle piece that could just click into the other piece and create a bigger and slightly different three-dimensional puzzle piece. And we wouldn't need a trigger.

If Hermione Granger was his perfect counterpart magically and his perfect counterpart in personality, completing a certain energetic picture, the energy would be able to just connect the two."

"But didn't you say that magic equals itself out before an adjunction?"

"Yes, it equals itself out in level, in strength, when it found the perfect match in the time leading up to the adjunction, but that's only to create the new entity. However, the kind of magic the sources wield, the ability, the disposition, charms versus arithmancy for example, would have to match for some reason, to create a specific entity with a specific manifestation and purpose. Quantity versus quality. We just never knew what to look for in a "match" for an adjunction. The magic could choose to combine a healer with a strong aggressor for some reason or a herbologist with a dragon tamer, just as examples. But since it wasn't always known what powers their adjuncted magic had, we couldn't even lead that back to certain magical skills the carriers had. If any of it was known at all." Andromeda stopped for a second to gather her thoughts.

"I knew that carriers didn't have to be equal in level, because the magic takes care of that, but everybody else believed this to be the common denominator. It's like a mathematical equation with too many unknowns.

And I never imagined on what other dimensions they could be matched. I never thought about a personality or emotional match. I didn't have enough information on adjuncted witches or wizards. If they just fit overall, create a certain energetic picture together, the energies would simply glide into each other and combine themselves and no trigger would be necessary. The big bang of shaking and vibrating in the adjunction is only for the new magical entity to form. And then, the adjuncted sources have to touch one more time, to seal it. I assume that the power of the new entity manifests during its inception, but I don't know for certain." She paused for a second, trying to digest her potential discoveries.

"Maybe we looked at it the wrong way. Perhaps it doesn't need a trigger at all, just a match." She stared into an empty corner of the room, thinking about the implications of her newly found evidence, until Narcissa called her out.

"Would you prefer a coffee right after lunch or would you rather wait a bit?"

"No, no, a coffee right about now would be splendid," Andromeda answered, still deep in thought, but turning automatically to her grandson cooing in his basket because he had finally woken up.

.

_A/N: And there you go. Any questions? Let me know. Are you still missing something? Let me know. You guys are my betas, all of you._

_Hermione might have come across a little Un-Hermionish (I love that word), e.g. she didn't remark on the house elves but we really have more important things to take care off, I thought. All of the characters were a little out of it, but keep in mind that they had mind-boggling (another word I love, can you tell?) revelations._

_We are not quite there yet, we still don't know what the compow exactly does, but we have an idea of why they adjuncted, don't we? (Vehement nodding from the audience, yes, we do). Good. Now, we need to get our lovers to actually __know__ that they love. On it. In the next chapter. Keep reading. On this site. Soon._

_P.S.: I'm not quite satisfied with this chapter. I reworked the end a bit, after I had reviews saying that people didn't understand. It contains so much information that I can't keep my mind on it and I feel like I'm forgetting something that I needed to put in. And it got to terribly long again that it takes 45 minutes to read through each time. So, please, please, let me know if you find inconsistencies, something that doesn't make sense or that you cannot understand for whatever reason. It's crucial for me._


	29. Library

_A/N: Yeah, Random Person (Or Lou), first review. _

_Scv914: hm, close, she takes him in, and he intrudes. Yes, they didn't need a trigger because they match, energetically (emotionally, personally, magically, different levels of energy, combining into one energetic picture, so to say, see added explanation below)._

_No, they are not soul mates (I won't get into that, too romantic) but it'll feel like it for them. But for some people (muggles) it can happen that their energies (we call them auras) align/are similar to begin with and it makes them soul mates. Isn't that what real soul mates are, people who just know what their partner is thinking and feeling? _

_Hermione and Draco are attuned (or in tune) because their magic/energies aligned. They came to realize slowly that they want/need each other while being separated, culminating in her Patronus when he is threatened; and when she accepts him in the bond breaking, their energies align. The union ("Coming into each other") will become important again, oh, well, just keep reading, I hope it'll make more sense eventually. Good feedback, it shows me, on my rework, I'll have to explain more. Or, I'll put a chart in the last chapter about how I envisioned it ;-))). To me, it's all very clear, of course._

_Artemisgodess: thank you. It is important to tell me where I go overboard with explanations as well. I do appreciate it. Due to your review, I added this little chapter here. It was originally part of the chapter after this but it would have gotten very long again and I've heard many times now, that my chapters become too long. I hear y'all. I put the (reworked) end of the last chapter at the front of this one for you all to catch up. I hope it's clearer now._

_And I want to thank the many, many readers who put my story on story alert or their favourite list. I should have done that long ago. Thank you, guys._

**.**

_Excerpt of Chapter 28: Energy_

_Narcissa Malfoy eyed her hands. "So, my Draco has fallen for a muggleborn for good?" she finally said quietly._

"_I wouldn't rule it out, Cissy," her sister replied, smirking. _

_Narcissa hrmphed._

"_Cissa, you know that we purebloods are dying out. In a few generations, Voldemort's issues with blood purity will have taken care of themselves. The entire wizarding race would die out if not for the muggleborns and half-bloods. How many more generations do you think you would have been able to continue in your pureblood ways? Hermione Granger is as powerful a witch as they come. I don't know how their personalities match but they seem to be very good for each other. The energy around them, the fact that it was streamlined, marked it as a perfect match. They will make a powerful union. Magically, she would have to be his perfect counterpart, the way their energies acted." She let the words hover for a second._

"_Say, that would be something to combine energies." Andromeda drifted off, thinking about her own words. "If they were perfect counterparts, their energies could connect like puzzle pieces. Hm." She turned her head toward the door where Hermione and Draco had just left a few minutes ago._

"_What do you mean, Meddy?" Narcissa inquired._

_Andromeda was deep in thoughts, but tried to deconstruct them for her sister. "Well, you know, energy is everywhere. We are made out of energy basically. But to form matter, energy needs to come in certain patterns. And to give matter life and purpose and make it sentient beings energy needs even more patterns. _

_There are basically several levels for patterns of energy in sentient beings. One is the life supporting level, the energetic exchange between cells. One is the feeling and personality level, our disposition. And in us magical folks we have the magical level. Now, this magical level is matched to our disposition still in the foetal stage. For example, a wizard who is excellent in defending against dark arts needs a certain aggression. A wizard who deals with magical animals or plants needs patience, just as a crude example. That doesn't mean he couldn't be courageous or that he'll never flip. We all come with a certain set of preferred behaviour modes and they match our personality and preferred mode of magic. _

_Now, we always thought that adjunctions chose two particular magical beings, take particular aspects of their magic, ignite them with a trigger and forcefully combine two magical energy fields to create something new. I say forcefully because it does come with loud banging and shaking. Ariadne told me about her adjunction and whatever has been written down about adjunctions confirms this. But, and this is the new thing that just occurred to me, if the targeted energetic combination for the adjunction can be achieved by just matching the two carriers, on whatever dimensions, they can slide together like puzzle pieces. If two magical fields matched energetically, like said two puzzles pieces, and perhaps the personality level as well, we have a three-dimensional puzzle piece that could just click into the other piece and create a bigger and slightly different three-dimensional puzzle piece. And we wouldn't need a trigger. _

_If Hermione Granger was his perfect counterpart magically and his perfect counterpart in personality, completing a certain energetic picture, the energy would be able to just connect the two."_

"_But didn't you say that magic equals itself out before an adjunction?"_

"_Yes, it equals itself out __in level__, in strength, when it found the perfect match in the time leading up to the adjunction, but that's only to create the new entity. However, the kind of magic the sources wield, the ability, the disposition, charms versus arithmancy for example, would have to match for some reason, to create a specific entity with a specific manifestation and purpose. Quantity versus quality. We just never knew what to look for in a "match" for an adjunction. The magic could choose to combine a healer with a strong aggressor for some reason or a herbologist with a dragon tamer, just as examples. But since it wasn't always known what powers their adjuncted magic had, we couldn't even lead that back to certain magical skills the carriers had. If any of it was known at all." Andromeda stopped for a second to gather her thoughts._

"_I knew that carriers didn't have to be equal in level, because the magic takes care of that, but everybody else believed this to be the common denominator. And I never imagined on what other dimensions they could be matched. I never thought about a personality or emotional match. I didn't have enough information on adjuncted witches or wizards. If they just fit overall, create a certain energetic picture together, the energies would simply glide into each other and combine themselves and no trigger would be necessary. The big bang of shaking and vibrating in the adjunction is only for the new magical entity to form. And then, the adjuncted sources have to touch one more time, to seal it. I assume that the power of the new entity manifests during its inception, but I don't know for certain." She paused for a second, trying to digest her potential discoveries._

"_Maybe we looked at it the wrong way. Perhaps it doesn't need a trigger at all, just a match." She stared into an empty corner of the room, thinking about the implications of her newly found evidence, until Narcissa called her out._

"_Would you prefer a coffee right after lunch or would you rather wait a bit?"_

"_No, no, a coffee right about now would be splendid," Andromeda answered, still deep in thought, but turning automatically to her grandson cooing in his basket because he had finally woken up._

_._

_._

_So, here's the improved excerpt from the last chapter with explanations about how their adjunction could have happened. Is that better to understand? Let me know_

_If you still don't understand, just take away that they match. Period. Basic chemistry rules and all. Like hydrogen and oxygen will always connect. And just keep reading, there will be more information forthcoming._

_Since I've had a few complaints that the chapters became too long, I've cut this one in half and added more explanations, especially for you. It means that the smutty part goes into the next chapter, sorry. So, no warning for this chapter, what a pity. Well, maybe a little making out in the library._

**.**

**Chapter 22: Library**

.

Meanwhile, Draco had led Hermione out of the Dining room, through the Grand Entrance Hall and up the sweeping staircase to the next level where the library was located. He opened the door, to let her in, and chuckled when she stepped past him and stopped thunderstruck right inside the double-door.

They stood in the front of an immense suite of rooms with shelves upon shelves filled with books. There was no front desk, as it was a private library without public traffic, and Hermione suspected that whatever book was taken got magically registered. Instead, the front part was accommodated with a cushy set of sofas with side tables and floating torches. The shelves started right behind this reading area and they went from bottom to ceiling, which looked about five metres high, and were crammed with books. There were doorways that led to adjacent rooms left and right. She couldn't see the end of the room but all in all, Hermione figured that this library could easily compete with the Hogwarts library in size.

Draco let her take it in for a few minutes, and when he finally addressed her with: "Pretty good, hm?" she found her voice again and stepped further into the room, past the reading area, between the first shelves. Draco followed.

"By Rowena Ravenclaw, Draco – How many of them did you actually read?"

He shrugged, leaned against the bookshelf next to her, and crossed his arms in discomfort with what he had to say next. He had wanted to show her the immense library because he knew that she liked libraries. He had repressed the thought that many books in this particular library were not going to be to her liking. They would have to eventually deal with it anyway.

His past would have to make its way into their relationship at one point in time. They had managed to get closer and find reason for their dating in the safety and isolation of her cosy apartment, but this reason could be very fragile in the test of time. It would have to withstand many obstacles and people from each their pasts. His mother's behaviour was just the beginning. He had seen the thoughts turning in Narcissa's head, trying to understand what she was seeing. She had allowed him to date whichever witch he wanted, but Draco figured she hadn't taken into consideration that he would take her by her word. Or she had banked on the fact that he would remember at one point in time what was becoming for a Malfoy. Little did she know.

Just now they encountered another obstacle, his upbringing as a mudblood hater, and had to determine how much that had changed. He made a mental note to start sorting the books here very soon. Anything that contained "mudblood" in the title would have to go, as a first initiative. He would burn them or, if they were historical documents, donate them to the Ministry for safekeeping. Perhaps Hermione would want to help with that.

"I was obliged to read some, allowed to read others and forbidden to read yet others until I was seventeen." He stared at the floor while speaking because he couldn't look at her. Her next question was more than obvious.

And there she went. Hermione considered him quietly before she asked: "Which ones were you obliged to read?"

He shrugged again and shifted his gaze to the top of the shelf across from him; anywhere but at her. "One was "The natural order of things". Another "Beautiful Darkness", and "The Dark Lord's rise – and its importance to us", then "There is only one magic – and it needs to be passed down from ancestors to descendants", and "Muggleborns and their uses" – those are classics in a pureblood household. I don't think you'll find a Slytherin who hasn't read these. It's a rite of passage."

He could feel her discomfort like it was his own. Maybe it was. He was as equally uncomfortable disclosing to her that he had studied "her kind" as a curiosity as she was hearing it. It was tangible, the discomfort, between these bookshelves that had accompanied him for most of his life and should feel good for her with her love of books.

She actually shuddered, feeling it. "I don't think I want to hear more."

She turned away from him to look deeper between the bookshelves again. She couldn't believe how immense they were, and yet how much crap they contained.

She stiffened uncomfortably when his arms came around her from behind. She knew he was seeking connection and comfort in embracing her, to get over his own discomfiture but she couldn't help him right this minute when she had to come to terms with it herself. He withdrew and when she turned around, he was barely able to straighten his face to hide his hurt.

"Do you still think I believe all this hogwash?"

Hermione lowered her gaze guiltily to the floor. "I don't know what to believe. As you can see, I have a hard time believing that all this doesn't apply to you anymore. Because it is so hard to change so entirely and you've been doused with it." She raised her eyes to look into his emotionless frown. "I want to believe that you've changed. It's easier to do in the seclusion of my apartment than right in the middle of the library that influenced you all your life. Standing here, I feel betrayed by libraries as such." She couldn't stand looking in his blank eyes anymore and turned to the darkness between the shelves again. "They've always been my haven, even before I came to Hogwarts. For a library to have so many books on a topic against me feels like my mother turning away from me. It doesn't make sense. You've always been the enemy. You've always been on the other side. Sometimes it just hits me that it shouldn't make sense to want you now." She grimaced and bit her lips. She'd said too much. Hermione was certain that she'd hurt his feelings, but in a moment like this she just couldn't believe that all this disgust he had insulted her with in their school years had faded away into nothing. That he had outgrown it.

In those moments, paranoia flared up and she remembered how his aunt had tortured her and that she shouldn't give him anything he would be able to hurt her with. She had to remind herself forcefully that Draco had reached out to her when his crazy aunt had tortured her to alleviate her pain. If he had done more obvious things at that time, they'd both be dead now.

As if sensing her inner dispute, he pushed off from the shelf and stepped up to her. He put a hand on her cheek to turn her face around again. Although his face was still a frowning mask and he bore his hard grey eyes into hers, Hermione felt an air of calmness around him. He was no threat, she felt that. But he wasn't entirely green with her either.

His voice was astonishingly calm. "Do you want to go back to what we were before we started working our compow? Connected but indifferent? Your friends, my friends and no connection between our worlds? You, Potter's mudblood, I, Malfoy the Slytherin ….?"

She stopped him with a hand on his mouth. "No," she said, anchoring her eyes on his chest, where she knew the scar went over his sculpted muscles.

"Why not?" he pushed on, speaking through her hand.

"I can't," she said.

He nodded. He had expected her answer because he felt the same way. He was glad, though, that she did feel the same and that she was able to say it out loud. "Then you have to admit that I have changed. And if you have to admit that I've changed enough to make you unwilling to go back to the old ways, then you have to consider that I could change entirely, don't you?"

"Yes," she said, letting her head sink forward to rest on his chest. "But sometimes I feel that I need to see proof."

He chuckled. "Ah, but that's where faith comes in. I might never get an opportunity to prove sufficiently that I've changed. What will you do, let me starve on your outstretched arm until never? Have a little faith, hm? Isn't that what Gryffindors are big on?"

That took her by surprise. Such an insight from Draco Malfoy. She knew he was smart, in a sharp thinking kind of way, but she had never expected him to be insightful. And he hadn't even snarled. Her head snapped up to look into his smirking face.

She sank into the clarity of his glacier grey eyes. It felt good to sink, pure even. She wanted to sink into him and be sheltered. She wanted to believe that he would protect her, despite his upbringing. That was what men did with their women, no? He was a man and she was a woman. They had gotten to this point so many times already, where they would have to face their feelings for each other and every time something else had come up and distracted them. She felt as if they were inventing the wheel over and over again. (_A/N: Yes, yes, I know, you guys feel the same way. I'm trying to push them forward but there are so many obstacles.)_

Hermione knew she would have to take a leap at one point, a leap of faith, to trust him, walk forward and get on with life, not be stuck in this loop forever and ever. Why couldn't she bring herself to jump? She had already decided that she wanted to see what they had. She enjoyed their physical togetherness very much, and that wasn't going to change. She didn't have to make wedding plans or sign her soul over to him. Not yet at least.

But the fact that he used to be untrustworthy niggled in her mind. She had spent six years in school, training her brain never to trust a Malfoy because they were out to harm her. It was an outdated program, in her mind, but it was hard to switch off.

"Why did you help him then, why didn't you just leave him alone that night in the classroom if he was nothing but an untrustworthy git?" the little voice in her ear chided her.

"Because I don't leave people in need, that's a Gryffindor thing. And he was clearly in need that night."

"Ha," her little voice scoffed. "Do all Gryffindor's have such high standards, do you think? Or are you taking the extra high road just to show that you can be more than perfect?"

"If you mean Ron leaving Harry and me behind, that was totally different." Hermione scowled back to her voice.

"Mountain road," the voice sing-sanged.

"Stop it," Hermione snapped back. "Harry and I were perfectly fine on our own."

"Andes road," the voice jeered. "So, it's okay to leave your best friends out in the wilderness, fighting for their survival, trying to find a way to annihilate the darkest wizard of all times but it's not okay to give Draco Malfoy a chance to prove that he likes you?"

"You can't compare those two things. Those were entirely different circumstances." Hermione grasped for straws against reason. This voice was getting on her nerves.

"Himalaya," the voice jeered again. "It's alright to make your girlfriend do things she doesn't really like but it's not alright to enjoy the gifts this man can give you? What are you doing, trying to win a price for best martyr, while climbing mountains?" It huffed.

"Yes. No." Hermione said. She was confused.

"Yes. No," the voice scoffed again. "Now, you're just trying to reach the summit without an oxygen mask. Ridiculous. You trusted Ron with your life and look where it got you. You cannot run around trusting nobody just because you've been disappointed once. It doesn't work that way. Draco is like any other man. He wants you; that, at least, is certain, and you know it. You have time to check how much he changed and if that is enough for you in the long term. Of course, there will be situations where both your pasts collide. Go out and see what he does in those situations. Or are you trying to be extra paranoid? You are smart, you'll find out if he is up to something. Until then, enjoy what he has to offer. Go and try. Have a little faith, in him, and most importantly, in yourself," the voice echoed Draco's words.

And as if that wasn't enough, it added one more: "You're worth giving yourself what you enjoy. Let go, Hermione. You survived against impossible odds. Now live."

Her silent conversation with herself over, Hermione let her head sink forward again, against his chest. She felt his arms wrap around her back and his hands digging into her hair, sifting gently through her locks. He had seen her inner fight in the movement of her eyes and was glad that it had ended with her seeking bodily contact again. He didn't know what he would have done, what he would do if she ever decided she didn't want this anymore. Go overboard most likely. It had already hurt like hell when she had stiffened because she was uncomfortable with his embrace just a few minutes ago. He knew he wouldn't be able to turn back from what they had, the magic, the fireworks, the witty exchanges, the peacefulness, and live his life entirely without it. It would be unbearably hollow.

"You have such a hard time because you are so stubborn. Some say tenacity is a virtue but you, as usual, take it to new heights." She heard him speak quietly over her head. She snorted. When she raised her head again after a contemplative second, she looked into a half-smirk and one raised eyebrow and had to smile against her will.

"I'm a stubborn girl, aren't I?" she spoke, leaning against his front, with his arms still around her. He fully smirked.

"As stubborn as they come. That's one reason why…" He stopped himself mid-sentence. Wanting her was one thing, admitting feelings was another.

"Why what?" She asked when he didn't continue and bit the inside of his cheek.

"Nothing," he said.

Hermione waited patiently but when he didn't finish his sentence she put her face forward again, only this time she dug her nose into his throat and the corner under his jaw. He was having the same difficulties as she was. Both were inevitably drawn to the other, but too afraid to say it out loud. Well, she could at least enjoy his body and his sharp mind. The rest would come in time.

She inhaled his smell that she liked so much and said: "Thank you for calming me by stroking my magic. I believe, if she could have gotten away with it, your mother would have stabbed me for appearing together with you."

Draco snorted, closing his eyes to savour the feeling of Hermione's closeness: "Well, thanks likewise. For stroking me and for not hexing my mother. She can get under your skin, I'm aware. You have to understand, though, she only wants the best for me, that is, within our pureblood traditions. She can't see yet that my perspective has changed; she can't understand what we have together. She should respect what I chose to do but she'll need time," he said, barely suppressing a shudder over the feeling of Hermione's nose under his jaw.

"Hm," Hermione made, moving the tip of her nose slowly from right to left and back again over his throat. This time Draco did shudder. This witch was driving him crazy, especially if she didn't mean to. He swallowed.

"So, you did see me in my nightmare, that night." He prayed to Salazar Slytherin that she would stop what she was doing on her own accord because he was too weak to do it. And he didn't want to take her in the library when she disliked it so much. But if she continued her ministration, he wasn't going to have much choice. Shagging against a bookshelf, now there was a thought that warmed him in a certain region.

Fortunately, the nightmare remark distracted her enough to move back from his throat. "Yes," she said, looking up at him. "And even though you were still "Malfoy the mudblood hater", my heart went out to you, knowing that you had to suffer as well. I can't explain it better," she finished murmuring.

Draco smirked: "Well, that's a first, Hermione Granger not knowing how to explain something."

Hermione snorted. "What did you feel when we adjuncted?"

He scowled. "I was just furious. Furious that you caught me in a compromising situation, having nightmares, that Potter had given me a scar that would never heal entirely, that I always had to suffer pain, that I was on the wrong side of the war, forced on a side at all, even though I wanted nothing to do with it.

I didn't like you at that time but I slowly realized that it was for all the wrong reasons. If we hadn't had these sides in the war and you hadn't sided with "Potter the enemy", I could have just tried to get you away from him and the weasel. You are smart, I am smart, and we could have done something together. I could have come to see what makes your magic different from mine, pureblood and muggleborn, or perhaps that it didn't differ at all. It's not only a birth right to me, I like magic and I like putting it to use. We could have created something phenomenal together. And I wasn't free to do that and that made me even more furious. Theo had it right. He did what I didn't dare. Another reason to be furious." He clenched his jaw in remembrance of his fury.

Hermione stroked over his jaw to relax it. "Don't be so hard on yourself. Would you really have tried to talk to me, the know-it-all prude Gryffindor when you were the cool Slytherin prince?"

He looked at her defiantly: "I want to believe, I may have. It rankled that I couldn't, even if I had wanted to. It made me angry to be reminded every time I saw you."

A sudden clarity came to Hermione, looking at his anger over missed opportunities: "You want to do something. You don't want to live on your Malfoy inheritance, you want to create something."

His eyes blazed in zeal. "I want to do something worth wile, yes. I don't only want to meddle in politics and hang out in the ministry and put pressure on the minister, so people won't forget me and my power and importance, no."

She smiled. "Well, let's figure out what the compow does and maybe you'll get your wish. And rein your anger in. I'm too content to want to feel angry."

He huffed. "You can feel my anger?"

She shrugged. "I feel when something doesn't sit right with you and anger certainly qualifies as that."

His mouth twisted into that half-smirk again, something Hermione had never seen on him before this day. She liked it. "Me too," he said.

She grinned back. Then she remembered something Andromeda had said and her face fell.

"Oh, gosh, it was so embarrassing when Andromeda insinuated she saw us stroking our magic."

Draco chuckled. "I hope she'll tell my mother and help her understand how deeply connected we are."

Hermione looked a bit unwell. "Do you think she'll try to get rid of me, your mother, for crossing her plans for you?"

Now Draco barked a laugh. "I wouldn't put it behind her, so you'll have to stay very close to me for protection." He pulled her close and felt her up.

"Ah, it's called protection now."

He chuckled and kissed her nose. Hermione ploughed on.

"What do you say about Ariadne Lovegood having been adjuncted as well?"

He peppered her face with kisses. "And with Magda Prewett. Remember we talked about her?"

Hermione turned her face the other way, to give him better reach. He chuckled at her obvious manoeuvre and obliged her wish. "Of course. Molly Weasley's late sister-in-law. Murdered the first time Voldemort was powerful. Sister to Arabella Figg. I want to know what their power has been."

"Yeah, that would be helpful. But I wonder more, who was the stronger one of us two, now that we know we weren't equally strong to begin with. Pity, I really liked that idea. I bet it was me."

Hermione rolled her eyes. She wasn't quite sure if in pleasure or in exasperation. "How typically Malfoy to think that. Does it matter? After all, we are equal now, no matter what we were before. And maybe we were equally strong to begin with. Andromeda just said it isn't necessary. She said, the carriers don't need to be but they still could be. Right before the adjunction we were anyway, that's what she said."

Draco had moved on to her neck and nipped on her pulse point. But the thought struck him. She was right. They were equally strong. The magic had levelled them out. It didn't matter what they were before. The past was past and they were equal now. How queer. And together, they were even stronger. All the more reason to ravish this library and throw out the junk.

"You are just afraid that I was the stronger one and I would forever tease you about it." He teased her.

Hermione giggled. "No, I really couldn't care less who was the stronger one before the adjunction. Do that again."

"What, that?" he asked against her skin and nipped it again. She giggled once more.

"It tickles, but in a good way. What do you think our qualities could be that went into the adjunction?"

"The dream said kindness and tarnished soul." Draco mumbled into her hair behind her ear.

"Hmmm," she made luxuriously. "What exactly does that mean? Draco, you have to stop doing that, I'm losing my focus."

"No idea. Has to be an energetic thing," Draco mumbled further into her hair. "How about we sit down on one of the couches? I'd like to try some more to make you lose your focus."

"You are already very good at it. I don't want to know how much better you could do it sitting down," she hedged.

"Spoilsport," he snorted against her neck. "I bet you also were always the responsible one who broke up a party in the common room."

Hermione blushed. He had hit the nail on the head, as usual.

He came up to face her. "Am I right?"

"Somebody had to be responsible," she mumbled.

Draco smirked. "Ah, Granger, live a little. Especially in times of war it's important to keep one's sanity by going overboard every once in a while."

Hermione was annoyed, being put on the spot like that. "Well, we are not at war anymore."

He smirked more and dipped his head forward to capture her lips, which she had pulled into a pout. "All the more reason to live." Grabbing her face in both hands, Draco turned and moved her out between the aisles of bookshelves and toward the sitting area where he pushed her onto a couch.

She let herself led easily. Hermione was not opposed to being kissed by Draco Malfoy, despite her annoyance. She had already realized that nothing lightened her mood better than being seriously snogged by one particular platin-blond man. She didn't even mind him straddling her and being pushed into the pillows of the backrest because they were very soft and the kissing was exceptional. It made for pleasant tingling all through her body. But when he pulled on her blouse to open the buttons, she put a stop to it by putting her hands over his.

"Draco, not here."

He exhaled into her face and when she saw the desire turning his ice-grey eyes into black ice, she felt her womb clench. He did one last lip-pulling kiss and then moved off her lap with a groan. "One day, you're going to strike me down with a simple refusal."

He pulled her with her back into his lap and she stiffened for a moment when she felt his rod pressing into her. "Erm, I can still feel it, you know."

"Of course, Granger, you just said, 'not here', not 'never'. It's just a delay," he whispered hoarsely into her ear. She shivered. How in the world of Godric Gryffindor did he know so well how to make her soft and pliable like wax in his hands? To disperse her thoughts before she could turn them into a decisive "No", he followed up with a whisper of: "I wonder if you know how you do that, driving me bonkers. I've never wanted a girl or woman as badly as I want you."

"I bet you tell that every girl you want," she failed his trial to woo her.

He chuckled. "I never needed to. Nobody ever refused me before."

That ignited her and she almost gave in. But the second before she gave herself up to him, a thought wriggled its way through her always alert mind and lodged itself into her consciousness (as thoughts do in inopportune moments).

"If no woman or girl ever refused you before, does that mean you never fought anybody as much as me?"

That sobered him enough to switch from the level of his lower region back to his quite able mind. "Well, Potter and the weasel, but no other girl, that's right."

"Ah," she exhaled in relief.

"Why do you ask?" he questioned suspiciously.

"Well, if you fought with other girls, it could have meant that the magic had matched you against them as well for an adjunction."

He snapped at her earlobe and suckled on it when he caught it. "It wouldn't have had to be a girl. I could have adjuncted with a guy as well. Or one of the dragons we had visiting for the Triwizard Tournament."

"Eww," Hermione made.

"One doesn't have to sleep with his adjunction partner" he tongued into her ear. "But I feel rather tempted to do it with mine."

Breathe, Hermione, she kept telling herself. Breathe.

"Was there anybody else you frequently fought with?" he continued to speak in her ear in a way that she felt his tongue touch her ear shell, which made her positively ready to rip his clothes off and attack his prick with all she had, when her breathing exercise didn't seem to be enough.

"Hm?" she made, slightly distracted.

"Well, the magic could have tested you against other potentials as well. So, was there anybody else you fought with?" he asked while nibbling on her ear shell, indicating that fighting with her was the least on his mind in that particular moment.

"Well, Ron," she said.

He paused noticeably. "The weasel," he said drily.

Hermione didn't want to turn him off of her (or away from her ear), and so she continued quickly. "But I can't believe that I could have adjuncted with him. Oh, Merlin that would have been unbearable." She shuddered.

"Why, you'd rather adjuncted with me, an enemy, that with your best friend?" He still spoke in her ear but with a little more distance.

She was happy to calm him. "Well, as things go, I'd rather not think about being so intimately connected to him in comparison to you."

She felt his smirk against her ear. "Well, as things go, I prefer you adjuncted with me rather than the weasel as well."

"Well, thank you," she said primly.

"Ah, riling Potter and the weasel up was one of my favourite pastimes. You in the mix were always a bonus," he said smirking.

That startled her for a second. "Excuse me?"

Draco snickered. "Weasley was always too easy. He jumped on any provocation that came his way. Potter was a bit more difficult because he wasn't afraid of Voldemort. But once I figured out his weak spot with regards to his family and that he longed for one but basically knew nothing about them, it became a bit easier," he explained into her ear. "But you were always a challenge. You didn't react to insults to your looks. Every other girl I could get close to tears with remarks about her appearance, but not you. The only thing I could get you on was your bookishness and that you constantly needed to prove that you knew something. But it was tricky, too blatant didn't take and too subtle you were prone to ignore. Even the mudblood term didn't work well. Insults against Potter enraged you. But they had to really hit him deep for you to jump on it. I always thought you had a thing for him."

"You've given this much thought." Hermione turned her face halfway to him. How astonishing to hear that he put so much consideration into her insults. No wonder they had stung so badly.

He used her half-turned face to slide his lips and tongue across her cheekbone. "It was such a reward to see your eyes blaze in fury. I knew I got you when you set your mouth a certain way and squeezed your eyes and turned up your nose."

Hermione turned around entirely to be able to look into his gleaming clear grey eyes. She was more than perplexed that he had put so much importance into riling her up.

"You antagonized me intentionally to see me in rage?"

He smirked. "It was good to see that the always proper Gryffindor prude had some life and rule breaking in her. I just wanted to get your focus away from the pitiful weasel and Saint Potter."

She wasn't quite certain if she should be flattered now or if she should have been concerned because of his interest. Her mouth pulled into a smile against her will. She gave him a "If you only knew how much rule breaking I had in me," and then, ignoring his raised questioning eyebrows, tried to lead the conversation in safer waters again.

"But we know now that there was friction because of the magic equalizing us, and it, I don't know, electrified the air and that's why we were more prone to fight, right?"

He nodded. "Right."

"And then we adjuncted, fighting, you were furious. Remember Andromeda said, Magda and Ariadne adjuncted as well over a fight. What does a quarrel do, energetically, to cause magic to combine? Can that be the trigger?"

"Hm," he made, deep in thought. Telling her had clarified to him, how he had always tried to rile Granger up and why. He had wanted to see her enraged. He had wanted to see her passion, her emotions, her attention directed towards him and it had always been so hard to get her to do that. She had always focused only on Potter and Weasley. Even though he hadn't really liked her at that time, he wondered if maybe it had been because he couldn't have her. His mind was an exceptionally strong force, even in lying to himself.

He continued, thinking out loud, while taking one of her locks hanging in her face between his fingers and turning it around and around: "We adjuncted to create an extra energy for the balance of things, right?"

She nodded. Andromeda Tonks had said that.

He carried on: "Magic is bound to the character of its carrier. That's why witches and wizards differ in their magical skills. The magic chose us, because we have something that in combination can add to the universal balance." He couldn't suppress the sneer entirely at the thought. It was an odd concept. She nodded again nonetheless. "Our skills combined created a piece of magic to better the balance." Hermione confirmed with another nod. "So, if we have the right set of skills… " She froze.

"Do you come to the same conclusion?" he whispered against the side of her mouth.

"… why would we need a trigger?" Hermione said wide-eyed, staring ahead.

"That's what I thought, yes. It's possible."

She faced him. "But what then?"

He looked down at her mouth and realized that he liked her lips quite a bit. They had a beautiful bow. And they were soft and pliable. And she could use them greatly in kissing. "Then we have to consider that we adjuncted because we simply brought the right skills to the table. In energy speak. That we were simply right for something. Kindness and tarnished soul. My touch with dark magic and your whatever kindness is supposed to mean."

Hermione followed his little digression breathlessly. "And?"

"And we also have to consider that much of the theories about adjunctions that we read about are pure conjecture for lack of actual knowledge. We have to take the facts, which we know for certain and go from there. For example, Andromeda disputed that the carriers feel a need to be together, because the adjuncted magic draws them together to unite it. But then, why did we need to be close if not to complete the compow? Why did I feel so relieved to see you in the Manor after your months of escaping Death Eaters with Potter? We hadn't even started working the compow; we didn't even know that we had it at that time, so I couldn't have been drawn to its energizing effect, like she said. Why did the dream tell us not to separate? Why did we feel so miserable when we did? We have to look at what we actually know to be true and go from there. And we have to be prepared that it's possible that all we've read could be complete hogwash. As Andromeda already pointed out."

Hermione swallowed. Thinking she knew something, only to find out that the knowledge gathered from books was faulty, made her uneasy. Draco on the other hand, had gleaming eyes in excitement. "It doesn't seem to deter you that we have to start from scratch," she whimpered.

His eyes glittered when she said that. "This is unknown magic and I can't wait to actually find something out about it."

Hermione groaned. "Oh, no."

Draco laughed. "Come on, Granger. This is where the fun is. Just reading up on something is boring."

When she just whimpered more, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her temple.

"It's not entirely from scratch. We can take what we are supposed to know as premises and go from there, see if we can prove or disprove it."

"I think we'll have to. Otherwise, we are completely in the dark," she moaned into his shoulder.

He smirked against her temple, and lowering his mouth, whispered into her ear: "I know what I want to do in the dark."

Hermione snorted: "Draco, be serious."

"I'm entirely serious," he said, digging his nose in her hair, resting his lips on her ear shell again.

She grinned against his chest. "Alright, alright, I know, too. But can you give me a few "facts" first, so I don't feel so entirely lost?"

He chuckled. "Ah, that would have been the day in school: Granger, lost without facts." He looked straight ahead, savouring the imagination. He chuckled once more and then said: "This is the exciting part, Hermione, to find something completely new."

She disagreed. "I hate it when I can't find it in books," she mumbled into his shirt.

He pulled her head up and when he had captured her eyes, he said with a smirk: "You are going to write your own book. And in the newest edition of "Hogwarts, a History" you are going to have a paragraph or a page just about you." He wiggled his eyebrows in delight. It was contagious and Hermione giggled, seeing him so jolly.

"Not without your name on it, I won't."

He sobered a little and set her back from his chest. "I don't think I want my name in the book as the guy who tried to kill Dumbledore and couldn't even do it."

But Hermione wouldn't let herself be pushed back and ignored his comment about Dumbledore. "Draco, if I, if we write a book about the compow, then your name will be on it as much as mine."

"We'll see," he said.

"Yes, we will," she barked bossily. "Now, kindly list the "facts" we have about the compow."

He inhaled once deeply and straightened his shoulders. "Alright. Drawing from Cornubius' book, a combination of magic is possible and has taken place, namely an adjunction. Confirmed by Lovegood's book, it combined your magic with my magic and created what we now call "the compow". We'll leave the point aside as to the how it happened, besides that it happened while we squabbled as usual, and go with the why: it seems we have skills that combined create a new magic that will be important to balance the overall magical and energetic level."

Hermione nodded. "Andromeda confirmed that the compow, the newly created energetic force, likely has a purpose."

He nodded as well. "We knew that also from the dream. It's supposed to create a shield to protect innocents. So far, no contradictions."

Hermione took up the thread. "The combined magic gives the carriers extra power, strength wise, namely four times as much, and its powers, ability wise, are stronger the more different the carriers are. That makes ours fairly strong because we are on opposite ends of many dimensions and our purple is fairly bright, supported by Luna Lovegood. We have yet to find out what the actual abilities of the compow actually are. We only have the hint that it is able to break spells on us and in our vicinity and that its abilities consist of something inherently from us. By the way, we should talk to Luna if she knew that her mother was adjuncted. And what else she knew about her mother's work."

"Indicated as tarnished soul, my touch with dark magic, and kindness, from the dream," Draco finished her thought. "And I agree about talking to Lovegood."

"According to Andromeda, we have to be together for the compow to work its full power, because it draws from the skills that we have, which were essential for its creation. We are not sure if it draws us together for that reason or not. Do we have to get into when and how it manifested its power?" Hermione spooled more knowledge from her brain.

Draco shook his head. "Not right now, no. Whether it happened during the adjunction or later is secondary at the moment. But we know from Andromeda, that before the adjunction, the magic selected us, due to our skills, and prepared us by levelling our magical strength, to be able to combine our magics. This levelling causes friction between the carriers and they've been known to bicker exhaustively. Confirmed by Andromeda's witness testimony, re: Ariadne Lovegood and Magda Prewett. We used to believe the friction came from the fact that we were equal in magical strength but it could also be that it comes from the equalizing."

Hermione inhaled. "For whatever reason, as reported in Ariadne's book, we do feel relief when together, even though Andromeda said that it is not because of the energy uniting. You felt relieved when I came into the Manor, I felt relieved when you came back for the last mission. For what purpose this may be, we'll have to see. Additionally, I did feel moods of fear and despair while tramping with Harry but I couldn't say if they were mine or not."

"And I felt odd bouts of emotions as well during my last year at Hogwarts but I wasn't sure where they were coming from. Andromeda said that comes from our streamlined energy," Draco spun it further. "We know that we can guide our magical fields over, across and through each other's and it's a very pleasant feeling."

"Not to say exhilarating." Hermione smiled. "Andromeda confirmed that due to our streamlined energies we are able to detect inconsistencies of mood between us. That's not contradictory to what Lovegood said in her book, either."

"Right. And we can detect spell forming in the other before the spell is fully cast." Draco mused. "But how can we explain the streamlining of our energies? In the book, it didn't say anything about streamlined energies."

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe it also is part of our compow's power? We don't have an explanation for it taking your dark mark either yet."

"Which brings us back once again to the question why we match, what exactly we match in and what the compow can make out of it," Draco groaned.

"Well, your aunt pointed out again that we adjuncted when I accepted you as a non-enemy and you were furious. Your fury is a strong emotion and in Lovegood's book she expected strong emotion to play an important role. I checked the book she mentioned and I couldn't find anything of interest in it but we shouldn't rule emotions out completely. It's not much to go on but it's all we have at the moment," she said.

Draco groaned again. "There has to be somebody who we could ask."

"The only people I would know to ask are Dumbledore and Snape," Hermione said.

His eyes lit up. "Of course." But then, his face fell again. "But Dumbledore wouldn't want to help me, of all people."

"He would want to help me, and by extension, you. Besides, he knew what you had to do, he wouldn't carry grudges," Hermione explained calmly. "The only problem with him is that he is dead. And Snape as well."

Draco smirked once more. "But their portraits are still at Hogwarts."

Hermione froze for a second, and then she became very animated. "Of course. How stupid of me. I totally forgot."

"No, not stupid," he said, flipping his finger under her chin, his eyes firmly fixed back on her lips. "Just a little distracted."

"Alright, so, I'll send a message to Professor McGonagall, requesting a meeting in her office and we can ask Dumbledore and Snape about it."

Within minutes, she had sent off her Patronus with a message to Minerva McGonagall for a meeting as soon as possible at Hogwarts.

With nothing else to do (they didn't feel like doing research, go figure), she looked at the rows and rows of books on the endless shelves in the ceiling high library. She would have never thought that there could be a library as extensive as this one where she didn't feel at home. Draco Malfoy could see her dislike of the Malfoy library written in her face and he wondered what else he could do to bring this witch closer to him. He knew there would be plenty more occasions in the future where she would wonder what she had gotten herself into. But he had had a plan, bringing her to the Manor. He wanted her in his room, like he never had another girl or woman there before, except close friends. He wanted to break a spell on his life.

He drew her close to him and this time she didn't withdraw. Nuzzling into her hair close to her ear, he whispered: "I want to show you my room."

She exhaled and he felt some tension receding from her shoulders. "Alright, let's go."

.

A/N: Not a short chapter exactly, but shorter than usual and I hope it helps with the understanding. More smutty goodness coming in the next chapter.


	30. Magic

_A/N: Explicit Thanks go to articcat621, scv914 and nikki98 for reviews, thanks ladies. And millions of thanks to all favourite and story alert markers, you are equally appreciated._

_Okay, so this is the smutty part to the last chapter. Be aware_

_EXPLICIT – EXPLICIT – EXPLICIT – sexual content. __Don't say I didn't warn you._

**.**

**Chapter 23: Magic**

**.**

**Draco's POV:**

I put my hand on her back and led her through the never ending corridors in the manor. Indicating a change of directions, I put my hand on one side of her back or the other. That gave me the opportunity to touch her repeatedly, something I quite enjoyed. Every touch gave me a pleasant little tingle. I led her past the functional rooms on the first floor, besides the library, the den, my father's study, the Billiard room, Duelling and other exercise rooms and so on. The Grand Ballroom was, of course, on the ground floor, like the kitchen, Dining room, Drawing room, and other rooms for social contact, like my mother's solarium and winter garden. Only closer acquaintances were allowed one level up. And only very close acquaintances were allowed higher than that, on the second level, where the private rooms were, and only accompanied by a family member. I took her up the sweeping staircase to the second level, where my room (or suite of rooms) was the second on the right. We stopped in front of the grand oak doors.

"This is it," I said. "Ready?" I didn't really know why I asked her so explicitly. I only knew that I felt something important was happening, with me taking Granger to my private quarters, and I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to balk.

She nodded, biting her lips, staring at the doors. What else was she to do? I pushed it open and allowed her entrance before me. She stepped through the door frame and came to a stop a few steps into the room. I stepped in behind her, closed the door and watched her first impression of the lair of Draco Malfoy.

I had lived in my rooms all my life. I didn't pay attention anymore to its outlay and decoration. I only noticed when something was different and that was rare, because the rooms were charmed to tidy themselves up and it magically put everything back in its assigned place when I left the room for more than two hours. And the house elves took care of the rest. But when I entered together with Hermione Granger, I paid attention again to how it would look to somebody who came in for the first time.

It had changed of course, since I had lived as a child in it. The toys were gone, except for a few treasures that I couldn't part with, like my Firebolt flying model and a nightingale model that sang when you tipped the tail, and had been replaced by Quidditch gear and tokens and more sophisticated literature.

With regard to the English National Quidditch League (ENQL) I supported of course the Wiltshire Wood Warblers. Their stadium was just outside the village closest to the Manor's hidden location.

I simply liked Quidditch and I liked to play it, and not only to win. Soaring through the sky on my broom on the lookout for the tiny golden treasure that is the snitch exhilarated me. Too bad Potter had always spoiled my joy by stealing the snitch out from under my nose when we had played. The Warbler's flags and plaques were scattered all across my shelves. But it was in a delicate way, their yellow and green team colours not too obvious amongst my things. I would have never slept under a bedspread with their logo on it. And not only because their bedspreads did not come in Egyptian Cotton or silk.

Of course, the colour green could be seen in my room, it being the Slytherin colour. But it didn't dominate the room. Green was not my favourite colour.

I saw Granger turning her head, taking in the four poster bed, visible in the bedroom through the adjacent door on the left, the couch and two armchairs in my sitting room in front of the fireplace, the doors leading off to the bathroom and the dressing room. I had a desk in front of one of the three top to bottom windows for better light, and books on shelves over the whole wall around the fireplace. There were no paintings or posters on the walls, because the tapestry in chartreuse already had an inlaid pattern of the Malfoy crest (in silver). A few moving pictures of me and my friends scattered across the bookshelves assured that the room was really mine.

This was the room I'd lived in for 18 years. It had been my domicile, my retreat, my hideaway for all my life. And yet, now, that I showed it to Granger, it felt cold. It felt strange, like an empty house, a house that you used to live in; like a shoe that has been much beloved but was outworn. It was good that she was here with me, because without her, it would have been unbearingly cold and forlorn. In comparison with the last few days spent in her cosy apartment, my rooms felt like a vacation retreat shut down for the winter.

And I just knew there was no turning back. I would have to step forward. I would not be able to fall back into my old life. I would have to build a new one. How that would turn out, I had no idea. It didn't mean that I would have to burn all bridges to my old life, just that I would not be able to hide behind my parents and my upbringing and the Malfoy name anymore. I had to create myself anew. I had to find a new safe haven other than my room.

"I see that your room is not drowning in green," was the first thing Hermione tentatively said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Of course not," I scoffed. I was a little disappointed, that she had me pegged for living in the colours of my house. "I take it your childhood bedroom was red?"

"Oh Merlin, no." She shook her head vehemently. "Red is not even my favourite colour."

"Neither is green my favourite colour." She turned to me.

"What is your favourite colour?" she asked. (_A/N: I swear, Anne M. Oliver, I had that written ages before your chapter 39 came out. Great minds think alike and all that. And my "favourite colour" thingy has a different function. I actually stopped reading her story for a while so I wouldn't stumble over more similar elements. )_ I eyed her carefully.

"What's yours?" She smiled and didn't go into playing "I asked you first". I hadn't expected her to.

"My favourite colour is blue. (_A/N: And I'm so glad that we all agree on that. It's in almost every story I read, her favourite colour is always blue.) _And it can differ from the blue of a summer sky to the blue of a night sky when the sun has just gone down, right before the stars appear." What an extensive answer, just for a favourite colour. Life could never be boring with Granger. You never knew what she would come up with. Such things may be frightening for narrow-minded people, but to me it was like fresh air.

She looked at me expectantly. "My favourite colour is black," I mumbled.

"Black!" she said with emphasis. "Why?"

I looked over to the curtains, which were actually black to darken the room appropriately, and remembered how often I had hidden behind them, trying to escape my nightmares. "Black is dark. You can hide everything in the darkness." She stepped up to me, toe to toe. I looked into her warm, gleaming eyes and felt the safe haven just within reach. Good feeling. "But you can't decorate a bedroom well in black. It makes you depressed and you don't sleep well," I finished.

"I agree. And we can't have that." She smiled brightly and wrapped her arms around my hips. She seemed to feel comfortable enough in my room; she hadn't said much but it had been more than noticeable that she had felt uncomfortable downstairs with my mother. Partially, I blamed my mother for it, of course. She could make mould feel not at home if she stared at it long enough.

It would have surprised me if she had greeted Granger with open arms. That's why I was glad that Andromeda had been there. It gave me the perfect opportunity to have my mother greet Hermione officially. There would be repercussions for what I did but the deed was done and I was glad for it. My mother would not be able to take back her official greeting. I figured she was disgruntled that I had tricked her. But to be so opposed toward Granger after she knew we were working together was a bit much. And she had openly allowed I date whoever I like. It wasn't as if I had introduced Hermione as my new fiancée.

She held up surprisingly well, Granger did, but she was better when she was alone with me. Perhaps it was because of the physical contact that we could have only away from prying eyes and the scrutiny of other people. I had snugged my arm around her back, so I could touch her covertly. And later I was able to take her hand. It had felt good.

Come to think of it, it was quite surprising that I was so keen on touching her. The last three days in her apartment had been nothing but touches, more or less intimate. Even in the hospital I had held her hand almost all the time. Why was I so set on touching her? Girls had always wanted to touch me, my soft hair, my firm body, my pale skin, etc; I couldn't help that I was so handsome. But I was never particularly tempted to touch any off them, more than necessary that is. It was a bit bewildering that I enjoyed touching her of all people so much.

I was way over the brainwashed notion that muggleborns were slimy and unhygienic. Of course, I knew that muggleborns were not different from me and Granger in particular was very nice to touch, I had realized that night in the classroom: soft skin, soft curves, nice smell. It felt simply good this touching, as unlikely as that was because I had been raised to find her kind repulsive; like it felt good when our magical fields touched. And it felt bad when I wasn't free to touch her, as it had been when she had recoiled from my embrace in the library.

And not only was our shagging phenomenal, and quite unexpectedly so, because who would have thought that Granger the prude bookworm had such a salacious streak in her. Even small touches were pleasant and warming and genial. I hadn't felt this content in years, maybe never. It couldn't be simply from climaxing (even repeatedly) because I had done this gazillion of times with other girls or women, and it didn't have the same effect. There was simply something to touching Granger that made me content.

Standing in my room with Granger pressed against my chest, I exhaled in relief. I had been afraid that she would feel as if she had stepped into a dragon's lair and was afraid for her life at every turn and again would recoil from my touch. But as usual, she had exceeded my expectations.

I knew I frowned in that moment. It just came natural to my face to frown. Smirking, sneering, laughing derisively took effort to accomplish, even though I mastered these facial expressions well. Frowning was almost relaxing. When I felt uncertain, I frowned. It gave nothing away, I had time to assess the situation and I could change it quickly into something else. It wasn't nice to look at, though, and I much preferred to look at a woman's brilliantly smiling face, as I did in that moment. It was contagious, her smile. It made me giddy enough to want to do something, anything. And being Draco Malfoy, giddy is hard to come by. With her arms around my hips, I had to put my arms somewhere on her body and so I wrapped them around her shoulders.

For some reason, and despite what we'd done the previous few days, having her in my room for the first time made me feel like a virginal boy on his first date. I was nervous and unsure how to proceed. Granger had niggled herself into my consciousness. I had realized it after my engagement (was I ever glad that impulsive mistake was over). While we had just been civil, humane and working together I had still been able to deny, if pressed, to me and to others, that anything had changed. I could still have claimed that I was the usual old Draco Malfoy, the pureblood supremacist, to everybody else. I would have perjured myself but everybody else could have believed it. I was such a good liar.

But it would have been a lie, and I would have known it, because she was constantly there, in my mind. It hadn't been natural that I slept with her, like I shagged every other woman I dated. There had been a natural barrier to go there, to sleep with Potter's mudblood. It had just happened when she jumped me in her foyer. But after it happened, I couldn't turn back. She was like a highly potent potion. I kept coming back for more. It was peaceful and comfortable and satisfying. And with repeated touching and shagging, she had drilled herself into my mind. And now, I couldn't delete her. And that made me nervous, because it made me dependent on whether she wanted me or not. That had never happened to me before. I wanted to be able to commit because I hated personal limits but I didn't want to be dependent; and on a former enemy. Scary concept.

Granger leaned into me, stroked her magic up mine and put her cheek on my chest. I had her curly hair under my nose, and the rose smell wafting from it reminded me that I'd had it before, right there, under my nose, and in intimate situations. The memories drove blood in certain regions below the navel and broke the stupor and discomfort. By her magical touch, I realized that she wanted it just as much and why I had wanted her here, in my room; to break a spell of my life; to see if I could let a woman, well anyone, really, into my personal space.

I brought my hand around and lifted her chin to my face. Before her eyes could form a question, I had my lips on hers and remembered by the surge through my body, why I had wanted this, this bliss. Because being with her was bliss. Pure and simple.

She responded immediately. She melded her lips to mine and gripped back as much as she could against my eagerly devouring mouth. It became quickly feverish, and breathless and searching still deeper contact, I knew I needed to get her on my bed. Not only for the significance of it, but also because we were going to crash to the floor, if we didn't find a resting place. I lifted her up and she slung her legs around my hips. It felt right, she fit just into my form, like she was welded to me. Still kissing feverishly, I carried her over to the bedroom and put her down on my bedspread (green with the Malfoy crest.) For a moment, it felt like a sacrilege to have her on this green bedspread. I lifted her up one more time and ripped it off with a sudden move. She looked at me wide-eyed and then giggled at my impatient frown. I sat her down again and had meant to push her further to the middle, but she kept her legs around me and I lifted her with my body again, when I crawled on it. She clung to me like a baby monkey to its mother, and it was so easy to lift her. Due to our movements, her bum bumped against my crotch several times and subsequently, set it on fire.

I snickered because it felt funny, her clinging to me like a baby. Like a trusting baby. Nobody had ever trusted me like that before. She giggled in return, and then we had reached the middle of the bed and I put her down and was over her, my lips on hers, panting, reaching, clinging. I ripped her clothes open, wanting to touch, to feel her soft skin, smell her rose scent directly on her breasts and taste the salt in her drops of sweat. She helped getting her clothes off, panting when we pulled impatiently. She pulled on my jumper, gripped the shirt right with it and pulled it both over my head and threw it to the side. It landed on the floor. She opened my trousers, I opened hers and we both ripped them down.

I had to grin. If anybody had told me six months ago that I would eagerly rip down a willing Granger's trousers to couple with her, I would have hexed him or her. Even with our connection, I would have never expected that we would get this far. Our clothes divested, I went to worship her body like I had done a few times before, during the previous days. She stretched luxuriously on my white bed linens and sank her hands into my hair while I dug my face into her neck and throat and her breasts.

I loved her hands in my hair. The way she massaged my scalp should have its own name, I thought. She alternated scratching with fingernail digging, fingertip movement with letting my hair glide through her fingers and I could tell that she liked doing it. I felt the difference: other women had done it to manipulate me, once they'd figured out that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Granger did it for mutual enjoyment.

The same went for me. I liked eating pussies. I hadn't encountered a woman yet, who didn't like a hot tongue on her most private parts. But I used to like it because they liked it, because women went sky high when I touched their sensitive nob. I liked watching them go up and fall apart under my ministrations. It gave me a feeling of power, to be able to bring them up like that.

But Granger, I just liked watching. It had nothing to do with power but with giving pleasure and receiving it through giving it. It was so unreal, after everything we'd been through. I liked watching her let loose and writhe in abundance, when I stimulated her. I liked hearing her moan for me because I was the one doing it to her. I liked watching her face flush in arousal and the flush spread over her throat and chest and her hands claw at the bed linen in excitement. I liked hearing her beg for me to enter, because I wanted the same thing, to enter and to never leave; to sink in, deep, and to never come out again. To have her embrace me, enclose me, envelope me, take me in, receive me, accept me as hers. Just like her magic had done when we adjuncted. It had embraced mine. I had sent my magic out to her in fury, to batter, to hit, to cause pain like I was in pain and she had simply accepted it and taken it in. And it still begged the question who was the stronger one, the intruder or the receiver. I had an inkling about the outcome but the jury was still debating.

Seeing her flushed face, I realized that I had a new favourite colour: red. Red like her excitedly burning cheeks, red like her lips when I had kissed and bit them raw, rosy-red like the tip of her tongue darting out and licking around my mouth or playing with my tongue; or other body parts of mine. Red was what she saw when she acted possessively, every time I mentioned another woman or girl I had intimate contact with and who could therefore express a claim.

But red also stood for warmth, for heat; like the warmth I felt every time I was with her, like the fire-red heat I felt when I was in her, heat sweeping over me, enveloping my entire body, when we moved in one rhythm, toward one goal, journeying together, moaning, panting, until she writhed in passion and arched in a beautiful bow backward, moaning, whispering, or screaming my name. My name. And when I came, she took in my seed, like she took me in, deep in, like she took me, each and every time. She trusted me enough not to hurt her, and by now I would have rather hacked my hand off than hurt her, and no matter how intrusive I was, how much I had attacked her, how much I had snarled or barked or growled at her, in the end, she trusted me and she took me, she took me in, she accepted me and I felt whole. It was magical. There was magic in it. Magic. Dark red like her magic. Her magic that I felt connected to my magic, connected to me.

And red like blood. My blood and her blood, because they were the same. Exactly the same.

This was my bed; the bed I had slept in every night I was home for 18 years. It should feel familiar and comfortable; and yet it felt new and unusual. I had dreamed or fantasized about sleeping with several women while lying in this bed, Granger amongst them after our first accidental shag. It should feel natural to be here, on my home turf, with her, I had already imagined it; no, that wasn't right. When I had imagined sleeping with her, it hadn't been in this bed; it had been in her bed. That was the reason why this felt so novel, so earth shattering abnormal. And so significant at the same time. That she submitted to intimacy with me in my home, outside the isolated safety of her apartment, was an immense show of faith.

And how was it possible that this slim woman always knew what I needed the most? Whether she needed to rile me up or put me down, to embrace me and accept me when I was down or to put a calming arm on mine when I was up, she ended up doing the right thing. Whatever I said or felt or acted out, she had a counter for it. And it felt so unbelievably right. This was right. I felt it, and I knew it.

Just then she pulled my mouth to hers, before I had really gone far down over her body and I grunted in surprise. I had greedy women before, who couldn't wait to devour me in the mistaken belief, that it would capture my attention for long. It never did. But Granger's ferociousness to connect with me and take me in astounded and aroused me each and every time to no end. I couldn't believe that this woman, whom I had bullied all through our school time, could want me so much. Physically. After all I'd done to her. The least I could do was trying to give her what she wanted, now that I had the chance. And that was what I did. I kissed her back the way she liked it, using my lip nips, my tongue and quick pulling movements, in the way I knew it would make her moan in no time. When she wrapped her legs around my back I knew I had succeeded in arousing her. And that in turn got me higher, because I knew how fierce she would become around and after her first climax. When she moved her legs up high on my back, pulling me closer and exposing her centre to my groin at the same time, I knew it was time.

She moaned deeply when I sank it in and let her head fall back. The way she presented her white, slim, long throat to me in abandon, and with the way she moaned and pulled me in with her legs under my shoulder blades, I felt my chest tighten and my breath hitch and the blood surge into my shaft. I started moving immediately, thrusting in, pulling out, panting with every move, kissing, nipping, pulling her lips at the same time, feeling her warm puffs of breath on my wet lips and her fluids smoothing my movements. I took her upper lip between mine and savoured the warmth coming from her.

Granger was always warm. Everything about her was warm. Like a fire heated room when you come in from the cold. I could feel the heat spreading soothingly over my body from her fire again. Moving in and out of her, I opened my eyes. I wanted to see the alluring view of her arousal while I impaled her; her flushed cheeks, breathing through her slightly open mouth, her eyes wide. When I found her eyes closed, I nudged her nose with mine to gain her attention. She opened her eyes slowly and made my mental image of her complete. It made me short of breath and my panting picked up another notch.

I lifted my torso up a bit, so I could look down to where we were connected, my shaft smoothly moving in and out, blond curls intertwining with dark curls. When I looked back up, I found that she had followed my glance and was still looking down. It made me shudder in excitement, shooting blood into my face (only with her, I swear. I've never before been so embarrassingly aroused), to know that she saw my prick moving into her, and when her head came up again, our eyes met. The softness in her brown eyes over her flushed cheeks made me feel as if I was sinking into a pile of feather downs, warm and comfortable, soothing and receiving.

I felt it clenching in my chest and stomach and I felt something warm come up on the inside. Only my iron hard control over my emotions, painfully learned and honed over the years of my upbringing, held the bubbling emotions in check, on the brink of breaking through. It required quite some effort, too, and it was condemned to fail when I felt sweat break out on my forehead, especially since the bubbling inside fuelled my arousal in a way I had never known before.

I felt the crown of my hair constrict and I knew my climax was imminent.

"Granger, you need to come," I heard myself begging. "I can't hold it anymore. Where's my bloody control?" I cursed snarlingly.

She breathed one laugh against my lips. "I like you losing control. I like it when you enjoy this so much that you can't hold back. Who says that I always have to come first? Don't hold back for me."

If I had been able to, I would have stopped all movement with screeching brakes. But I couldn't. With her words of altruism, Granger had opened all floodgates to an inner sanctum, I didn't even know existed, and it all came pouring out. With two more strokes, I felt my grip slipping and the gates opening and my come pouring out into her silky heat. It was a slow release, the pouring starting before my muscles properly tensed, and while releasing, my body kept thrusting to prolong the stimulation. While bending back ward in climax I hit her pubis and the extra clitoral stimulation pushed her over the edge as well. It wasn't an earth shattering climax for both of us, but one of those that heat the back of your thighs and numb them eventually; they start as a rolling of heat over your body and leave you shaking in the aftermath, because they are long and gain in intensity over time; like a wave of mini-orgasms spreading out, one on top of the other.

Hermione panted it off, right in my face; with each wave of tension coming over her, she groaned to master the intensity of it.

I found myself talking. With the opening of the mythical inner floodgates, I found all my inhibitions and restrictions gone and with it all control. And with Hermione's ecstatically shaking legs around me, pulling me in, I burrowed my face in her neck and I just couldn't stop the words pouring out.

"Holy bloody shit, Granger, I love how you grip me, how you milk me, how hot it feels inside of you, and how tight; how your eyes shine, how your lips pull mine, how you fit. I love how you react to me, I love your sounds, I love your smell and your taste, I love the feel of your skin, I love how you surrender to me and how you overwhelm me; I love how you take me in, how you pull me in, I don't want to leave. I love how you push me or pull me, no matter what I need, and it feels so bloody right. I love it, I love it, I love …."

Having regained some decorum by listening to myself gush from the bottom of my heart, I could just stop my rambling before the last most important word. Gosh, Malfoy, I thought. Have you gone insane? I lifted my head to see how Granger had taken it and looked down into her smirking face with shining eyes. When she got eye contact, she said: "... being with you."

And I, caught in her shining eyes, said: "Yes." And exhaled.

Nose on nose, looking into each other's eyes, I thought that the world must have stopped and turned the other way round. I had admitted to a woman that I loved being with her, well, somehow. But I wasn't going to take it back. I had surrendered my control to her and waited now how she would take it. I was fairly certain that she wasn't going to ridicule me, so it hadn't been a total surrender into the unknown. I was Draco Malfoy after all; I would not surrender my innermost to an unknown woman. She had chosen a fairly safe phrase for me, I hadn't admitted my undying, ever-lasting love but then, I was Draco Malfoy. She couldn't possibly expect me to open my heart wide to her. It wouldn't be fitting for a Malfoy.

Still, there was some risk. Granger could still say she wasn't there yet, that she enjoyed our shagging but nothing more, and I would be left with a cold feeling. But I was falling. I had thrown myself over an unknown cliff, tired of holding myself back forever and ever, and I was falling in a free fall, and I waited with baited breath if she would catch me before I hit the ground. Since she was Hermione Granger, the chances were good that she was going to. But since I was Draco Malfoy, she might not.

She took my face in her hands and moved her lips over mine and after a soft kiss she said: "Me, too." I waited for the second shoe to drop, for her to say it was just a joke and how could I possibly think that she had any feelings for me, a Malfoy, and after all I'd done. But when she saw me waiting, unmoving, she said: "I love being with you, too." And then, she sealed it with a sweet kiss. A kiss that really didn't go further, that started, stayed and ended with the lips. Sweet.

Saved. She had caught me. I had dared and she had saved me. Again. It seemed to be her destiny to save me from crashing. I felt home. I was where I was supposed to be and I would stay exactly there. With her. Where ever she went. Home. And for the first time in my life, I realized that I hadn't shagged, I hadn't fucked, I had made love to a woman.

My woman.

Hermione.

Spell broken.

.

_A/N: Don't worry, this is not "It". There will be more._

_I had this originally all in one chapter, the plot sketched out, the breakings spells part (chapter 19, leading up to it, and chapter 20) up until here. But as it is with writing, once you fill in all the details and it becomes longer and longer, you have to cut it. I had to change the order as well and put the talk with Andromeda (chapter Energy) before this part. This part here was originally the culmination, the conclusion of the breaking spells. It's a bit removed now. _

_So, I'll put a little explanation in. Please check if you understood it the same way: we know that the compow breaks spells and they are using the process of finding out exactly what it does to get to know each other, to test their compatibility, which is basically what you do when you date. They had to establish that they are dating, to make it exclusive because they feel so drawn to each other (be it through magic or for other reasons) that they have to claim each other. And while dating, they have to figure out the emotions to their already existing extreme physical attraction, resulting from their perfect physical fit and the bliss. They are coming from the backdoor through the kitchen instead of the front entrance (so to say), trying to put a finger on why they should be at all attracted to each other, and emotions, what emotions? And it's intertwined with finding out about their magical abilities and that's why it's so complicated. They've also been in a war and have experienced extreme violence and cruelty and have to deal with their nightmares as well; and their preconceived notions and the prejudices around them. They can't just stand up and declare: Oh, sure, I'm in love with my childhood nemesis as unlikely as that sounds because he used to bully me/she used to be an enemy/I was tortured in his house/I was raised to believe her an inferior human being and she would have been fodder to other Death Eaters' repulsive atrocities because she would have been worthless as a human being. They have to realize that they've changed and in what way and what they have in each other and that it's not unreasonable to fall in love. And all in a few days' time. _

_This at least is what I mean to write. Let me know if it's a bit long-winded at times (one reviewer already did, thanks) but this is my first draft of a story that started as just an idea and now turns out to become book length, and some kinks will need to be ironed out. It doesn't always flow from my fingers. That's what a writing process is all about. Thank you all for helping me in my "Learning-how-to-write-a-good-story" journey. (And no, I'm not in "Writing-therapy" ;-))))_

_And back to Narcissa (rubs hands, this part was really fun to write)._

_._

**Narcissa's POV:**

When they came back after a few hours, my sister Andromeda had already left and I had had time to think a bit about what I had seen. But even without her sight for energy, I could see that something fundamental had taken place between my Draco and Hermione Granger, even in these last few hours. I had to come to the conclusion that he wasn't "my Draco" anymore. He would always be my son, but he wasn't my boy anymore. There was no mistaking it. He was a man, a young man who belonged to the young woman at his side.

I knew it as soon as he said he was going to take her to his room that something was happening, and I couldn't do anything about it. He had been determined to prove something. There had been a certain set to his jaw that I rarely saw. I believe the last time had been when he had decided that he was going to make his way on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Fortunately, Lucius had been able to assist. Draco had taken his father's help a little reluctantly but Lucius had made the decision for him. (_A/N: Do I hear collective groaning? Good. I groaned while writing it. Can you imagine how angry he would have been?)_

When they had sat on the sofa across from me, there was a bubble around them, welding them together, making them an inseparable unit. Even without Andromeda pointing it out, I had seen how close they were when they came for lunch. I had just wanted to deny it. It couldn't be. It made me furious to see that he could have committed himself to Hermione Granger, of all people. Why her of all people, by Salazar? But when they came back, I had to admit that it was. They were intimately connected, very deep and irrevocably. You don't need to be able to see energies to know.

I know I said to Draco that he could choose whichever witch seemed suitable to him, even somebody not from entirely pureblood lineage. Our situation was dire after the war, our reputation in shreds, some (not all) assets frozen until our damages were to be determined, my husband in Azkaban as punishments for his deeds in You-know-who's maniac scheme. It would have been helpful for our reputation if Draco had been seen in the company of Potter and consorts. But I had hoped that Draco would get a possible infatuation out of his system and come to his senses eventually. I was rather glad therefore when he decided that he wanted to marry Astoria Greengrass. I knew that he had to work with Ms Granger as his year-long punishment for his involvement in the war and that he was civil to her, but did he need to connect with her? Did Draco have to fall for the most infamous muggleborn of all times? And dissolve his magical engagement, something that's unheard of? The scandal.

Andromeda said they were connected, body and soul, and I had no reason to doubt her because she had an uncanny knack to know what people were about, due to seeing their energies. But I couldn't believe that he had to connect so intimately with Ms Granger of all witches. My sister said they hadn't been forced to fall in love but I couldn't quite believe that my Draco would have wanted to fall for a witch that should have repulsed him. He had chimed into Lucius' rants against muggleborns whenever he was home. I remember him having a regular go at Hermione Granger in particular. Had there been more to it? Had she captured his attention for different reasons while they went to school together? Had we, as his parents, only wanted to see the obvious, the fact that our son followed obediently in our steps in attitude, and not looked for possible other reasons of his obsession with her and her school grades and her alignment with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley? What could she possibly give him that he couldn't get from witches of our social circles?

By her reputation, she couldn't be stellar in the bedroom and Draco had never lacked in that regard. Her looks were less than favourable. I expected she'd never seen a beautician face to face; something that we teach our daughters as soon as they can sit upright in a chair for the beauty spells to work. Consequently, our pureblood daughters were the epitome of grooming and refinement. And Draco could always have any witch he wanted in any which way he wanted. Physical attraction couldn't be it.

Then why did he have to go look for an entire outsider, a witch of less than acceptable standards? Was he so repulsed by our way of life that he had to change his outlook? Did he so abhor the beautiful witches of our circles that he had to turn away from them?

Draco had never gotten close to any girl he had been with. He had dated a few and likely slept with many more but he had never attached himself to any. I was his mother, I had seen it. I knew that his growing up in this house would have its consequences. It had pained me to see it, but as long as he wasn't attaching himself to any woman, at least, he was still my boy and he would come home to me and I could hold him and protect him, well, as much as Malfoys hold each other. I had been certain, even if he was going to marry any pureblood girl he had just chosen and not fallen in love with, he would still be with me, one way or another. As his mother, I would play a role in his life, and he would come to me for advice. Seeing him with this woman, though, I wasn't so certain anymore.

When he stood in front of me on that day, I knew I had to let go. He wasn't mine anymore. Hermione Granger had captured him and held him in her hands. She held him tenderly but with undeniable force, and she wasn't going to relent her hold. And he liked it there.

Was that what drew him to her, her power? It was possible. That was one thing that made her stand out, muggleborn or not, she was undeniably powerful as a witch. Was he planning to become the most powerful post-war couple in wizarding history? Now, that would be an excellent way to save our reputation. I just wondered why he didn't confide in me, if that was indeed his plan. I had to know. I needed to know what he planned to be able to force the gossip in the right direction.

"Mother, we are leaving." My son said with a beaming smile I had never seen before, holding the hand of the witch next to him.

"You don't want to stay for dinner?" I tried to hold them back. I needed to see more, I needed to see what his reasons were, and if I had lost my boy for good.

"No. But we wouldn't mind if Deezy brought us dinner again," he said with a smirk to the young woman next to him. She smiled reservedly, deeply embarrassed about whatever he was alluding to. As if I didn't know what they had likely been doing. Just because my husband was in prison, didn't mean I hadn't been young with him like they were now. We had lost the initial attraction after years and years of degrading services to the monster, for which I blamed Lucius, but that didn't mean that I hadn't once desired him. And Draco had a certain reputation, as young men do.

"Will you come for dinner tomorrow?"

Draco shook his head. "No, sorry, we already have dinner plans for tomorrow. And we are waiting for a reply from McGonagall, so we'll likely be busy the whole day tomorrow but how about the day after tomorrow?" He turned inquisitively to Hermione Granger. She shrugged. Dinner plans? They already had dinner plans in such a short time?

"The day after tomorrow is New Year's Eve, are you aware of that?" I said, fairly certain that they weren't. They were timeless, wrapped in their bubble of bliss. "No plans for a New Year's Party?"

Their shocked faces confirmed my suspicion. "New Year's Eve? Today is December 29th?" Ms Granger blurted out.

I nodded in confirmation.

"Oh, mother of Merlin. We missed Christmas." She was deeply shocked. "I was supposed to go to the Weasley's. No wonder, Harry tried so desperately to floo-call me. Why didn't we see the Christmas trees and decorations everywhere?"

Draco laughed. He pulled Ms Granger closer to him and kissed her temple. "You were in the hospital over Christmas and right after, we were distracted and didn't pay any attention to it. We had more important things on our minds." She blushed.

"Well, that explains why, other than floo-calling, nobody bothered us for the last few days." Draco snickered.

I felt my heart clenching in my chest. I had already suspected it, but seeing Draco so carelessly amused that he had missed Christmas and his load of presents that usually meant the world to him, confirmed again that his world had shifted due to this woman with him.

"You don't want to see your presents?" I started one last trial to capture my boy's attention back to his home. Smooth as a snake, he slipped through my grasping hands, my boy, leaving me cold. He shook his head, still laughing.

"No, mum, I think, we'll make it a point to come by at least the morning of New Year's Eve or maybe even New Year's. They can wait until then. I don't have time for gadgets at the moment." He turned to his young woman, seeking her acquiescence.

She shrugged again, but made a head movement, that said, we have no other plans, why not. Her quietness wasn't unexpected after the cold shoulder I had given her earlier.

Draco turned back to me and kissed my forehead. "Well, mum, we'll get going. I'll floo-call you before we come the next time." He was effectively moving out of the Manor, I realized with dread. At least for the moment. He was going to stay with her and he couldn't wait another moment to leave. In the wizarding world, you don't need an overnight bag for your essentials, so I figured he had shrunk a few things and stowed them in his pockets. But I needed a last word with my boy. The fact that he called me "mum", something he had never done while he had grown up, because Lucius had insisted on the formal "mother" and "father", didn't make it any easier that I was losing him.

"Ms Granger, before you both leave, I need a word with Draco. If you don't mind going ahead?"

Realisation dawned on her face and understandingly, she nodded. She turned to Draco, who furrowed his forehead impatiently that he had to let her go without him, but he turned to her as if on command.

"I'll take the floo," she said to him, frowning. Then her small face under her big hair stretched into a smile. "You know where I live."

He gave her a quick peck on the lips and smiled back. I'd never seen him be so tender with anybody. It made me choke. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Don't take too long," she whispered to his radiant smile, but I heard her anyway. I refrained from pointing out, how impolite they were behaving and just cleared my throat, then waited more or less patiently for her to turn to me.

"Thank you, Mrs Malfoy, for the excellent lunch and your hospitality," she finally addressed me. Well, her manners were quite alright. Maybe I would be able to warm up to her? Hm.

"Thank you for your visit, Ms Granger. I'm sure we will see more of each other in the future," I said the normally empty formula of farewell, hoping that this time it would be true. If I saw her, I would see my boy, I was certain. She nodded and with a last smile to Draco, she turned and walked toward the entrance hall floo and was gone in a whoosh of green flames.

Draco turned to me. "What is it, mother?" he asked impatiently, with his forehead still furrowed.

"You look well, Draco," I distracted from my thoughts.

"Do I?" he queried.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, you do." There was a satisfied air around him. And he was impatient to go where the satisfaction was coming from. I sighed.

"I just wanted to say, we have to discuss and address the Greengrass issue."

"I wouldn't know what's to discuss there," he countered with a frown. "Astoria's father said we could break the engagement if we could solve the magical bond. I know that he was banking on the fact that they usually are unbreakable. But we found a means to do just that, his condition is fulfilled and the engagement legally broken with the non-existence of the bond. Compensation doesn't really apply, since she got engaged to Theodore Nott right after, I believe. You could inquire about that. Old Greengrass might have refused Theo but I don't think so. It would have been the perfect opportunity to gild over the "scandalous" fact that Astoria is not going to become a Malfoy." His frown deepened. "I know I will have to face the public soon to make my position clear on this. Astoria needs to be protected, she did the best in the situation. She is not to take any blame. And I'm actually glad, that Granger is not here, because she would be furious if she heard." This seemed to amuse him greatly.

"Alright," I sighed. "I'll send a letter to Theo, asking if he actually is engaged to Astoria, offering my congratulations, and if that is confirmed, I'll decline the Greengrasses claim for compensation due to that fact. If that is not enough, I can find you where?"

"At Hermione Granger's apartment," he said without a flinch, straightening up, ready to leave. "Just send an owl, it'll find me. I'm not off the face of the earth. Just secluding myself from the public until we can appear appropriately together."

I nodded. He was going, going, …

"Why, Draco?"

He turned fully back to me, with the impatient frown back on his face.

"Why what, mother?" Oh, back to "mother", were we?

"Why her?"

He didn't even try to deny it. His face set, his eyes defiant, he held my gaze and said: "Because she is warm, mother. My whole life has been filled to the brim with cold contempt, cold calculation of the right way, ambition to gain more power, manipulation, subservience to a monster, and insurmountable expectations. I haven't been warm since I was seven years old when you took me to St. Mungo's because I had injured myself trying to ride a broom. And that was short lived because you told the healer to leave a little "reminder" for my stupidity and hubris."

I startled. I knew it had affected him but not how much. Some things you can never take back, I realized sadly. He stormed on.

"With her, I don't have to prove myself constantly, I don't have to portray the picture of the perfect Malfoy heir. On the contrary, she rather appreciates if I don't let the Malfoy hang out too much, the disparaging Malfoy who thinks nobody is good enough. She is not interested in the perfect Malfoy heir, the playboy who throws his money around in lavishing parties. She wants to see the man I can become. And it feels incredibly warm every time she looks at me and sees me, my person, my potential and not the acrid image I usually have to present. And I don't have to calculate ways to gain more power, because with her I wield magic of incomprehensible size and we don't even know its actual power yet."

I rolled my eyes dramatically. "You can't tell me none of the pureblood witches you dated weren't warming your bed properly. They are educated, they are the best."

He was taken aback. "You educate the pureblood girls in seduction?"

I huffed. "Of course we do. The love of a man goes either through his stomach or his libido. Of course we prepare our girls to be perfect for it."(_A/N: Another groan, anyone?)_

What had I said? His face darkened visibly and it was a scary sight. "You mean you train them to be able to manipulate the man to the point where he agrees to whatever his woman wants from him; to marry her and make her an honourable woman or lavish her with gold, is that what you are trying to say? That you train them to be highly efficient manipulators?" He hissed.

I could see the disgust and repulsion in his face and I didn't understand it at first. And then I remembered that Draco abhorred to be manipulated. I just hadn't been aware of how much he did, but it became very clear in that moment.

It was an impressive sight, my boy up in arms. I would have been afraid if he had been anybody else hissing in my face with such contempt. But there was also self-loathing in his following speech, and that almost broke my heart. We had always wanted to instil in him that Malfoys were the best. I don't know where we had gone wrong, as parents. (_A/N: Let me count the ways…)_

"I'm not even going to dignify your insinuation with an answer of why they don't appeal to me. Figure it out yourself. She is my redemption, mother. You wouldn't understand but if I can do right by her, I don't have to hate myself quite as much for what I did," he spat.

"But it wasn't your fault," I blurted out.

His gaze darkened even more. "Whose fault was it then that I mended that damn cupboard and let Death Eaters in a school full of innocent children? That a powerful wizard of incredible magic and benevolence had to die by the hands of one of his friends trying to save me, because I was too weak to stand up for myself?"

"But You-know-who would have killed me and your father if you hadn't," I exclaimed.

"Voldemort," he bellowed. I flinched. "He was no lord and his name was Voldemort. And stop twitching when you hear it. He was a man, a distorted man who made himself almost inhuman and who liked to torture other people for what he thought was right for him. He put me in charge of other people's life, a sixteen year-old, for fuck's sake. He branded me like a piece of cattle. What's so honourable about that? And I chose what was obviously right and what every obedient son would have done. But maybe I should have let you die and died myself than endanger innocent children. And I hate myself even more because if I had to decide again between killing my parents and myself or children, I would actually give it some thought, whether to do away with my parents. When I'm with her, it doesn't quite hurt so much, this thought."

"So, she is such a minx that she makes you forget your place in life, is that it? Well, I would have never guessed. By her reputation, I would have rather thought her fairly innocent and boring in that area. Your father will be rather disappointed in your choice and that they didn't capture her earlier."

I had said too much. I had crossed the line. I could see it by the mad glimmer in his eyes that I had. I was rather glad that he was my son and therefore would never lay a hand or magic on me. Otherwise, I would have been rather afraid having riled this furious young man up beyond his limit.

"Take that back, mother," he said in a low hiss. "If you ever want to see me again, if you ever appreciated any respect your son could have for you, you take that back and apologize for what you just said. I understand that your world is being turned upside down as well but I will not allow that you speak about Hermione in that way. You couldn't be further from the truth, but you will never find out what she is to me, if you don't apologize this instant."

He bellowed the last three words again. Building up from his low hiss, the fact that my son yelled at me, shocked me to the core.

"Alright, alright, I apologize and I take it back. But what did you expect, you tricked me into receiving her into my, into our house, you didn't even give me a choice. You are missing for days and come back with her all doe-eyed and I have to accept her without question? What were you thinking? I know I told you I would support whichever choice you made. And I will. Even Ms Granger if she gives you satisfaction. But did you have to choose her? And did you have to present her to me with a wand to my chest? Of all the witches you could have had, smart witches, beautiful witches, powerful witches, you chose the infamous mudblood, Harry Potter's companion, and for what? Are you trying to destroy our reputation for good?"

"Don't," he growled. "Don't call her that. With regards to what I was thinking, I believe, I thought that if you ever wanted any happiness for your son, you accepted her because I brought her here. This is my house as much as yours. With regards to tricking you, well, I learned from the best, didn't I? Not that I care, but I believe father would have liked that little trick. Very Slytherin." His grim smile froze my innards. Not that I care, he'd said. I was losing him.

He took my silence as an opportunity to escape our unpleasant conversation.

"I'll leave you to your thoughts, mother. If you wish to see me, us again, send word by owl because I will block the fireplace against intrusion. I'll see if our plans will allow it." He put emphasis on the plural pronouns.

He stepped to the fireplace, but before he stepped in, he turned back one more time.

"Oh, by the way, I took one of the rings we had picked out for the future Mrs Malfoy. I may need a token of appreciation for Hermione at one point."

"Which one?" I heard myself ask as if on autopilot. It didn't matter anyway, they were all his. He was the Malfoy heir.

"The silver one with the changing sapphire. The one that looks different shades of blue dependent on the light."

I watched him turning his back, and with another whoosh of green flames, he was going, going, gone.

"Take care, Draco," I said to the empty room.

I promised myself in the green light of the floo flames that I wouldn't cry. It was supposed to be that way; boys grew up and left their mother for their future wives.

I hoped she was strong enough to deal with my son's demons but I suspected she was. Don't be selfish, Narcissa, Andromeda had scolded me. He has to grow up and free himself from his parents, especially his mother's hold. And you have to support that.

And I would. I only just realized that I had to, really, but I would eventually. I would just have to overcome all my prejudices against muggleborns first. I was not a monster. And I loved my son, my only child. If my Draco, no, if Draco was to find peace with her, I would support their union. I owed him that. As parents, we had failed him when we couldn't protect him from You-know-who's service. But it was hard, nonetheless, to see his heart so completely captivated by another woman, where once my place was.

It was safe to say, my son had found his match.

And I had lost him. To her. Merlin's beard.

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_A/N: Narcissa is having a nervous breakdown, poor baby. I changed it a bit back in chapter 14/3: Gwenny, where she already said she would support his choice even if it was not a pureblood (insinuating potentially Hermione). This showdown was too good to be passed up. So, now in Chapter Gwenny, she thinks he'll have a few dalliances, give in to an infatuation with Hermione and get it out of his system, but trusts him to come to his senses eventually, see that other women are better suited, because Hermione will disqualify herself by her stubbornness, her pedigree and the way she is, and then marry a pureblood, which she will help choosing, later. _

_They will reunite, but I needed a catalyst to get them in touch with opposition._

_I am not quite satisfied with Draco's insight part in this chapter. But I want to put it up so I can continue with the end of the story. As usual, let me know if you see something that you feel is not quite consistent._

_More good parts coming up._


	31. Nightmares

_A/N: Yay, reviews. Nikki98: thank you so much; BlackHeartedBirthday (um?), articcat621, Sarah (will try to refrain; but it takes so many more words to explain it at the end than a quick note in the middle of the text), Lou (thank you, I'll put it on my resume: excellent smut writer *-*), scv914 (it'll still take about 6 or 7 more chapters to the end, though). I'm so glad you all liked it. _

_Well, this chapter is without smut. More in the next. But they need to be able to exist without shagging, no? For a little bit at least. Right. Dealing with demons in this one. It's also necessary. I hope it's still fun to read. Let me know, will ya?_

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**Chapter 24: Nightmares**

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When Draco stepped out of the fireplace in Hermione's apartment, he found her in the kitchen where she searched through her fridge and cupboards.

"What are you doing? Deezy will bring us whatever we need," he said while wrapping his arms around her and digging his face into the nape of her neck. He breathed in her scent, using it to calm his nerves after the unnerving "discussion" with his mother. In, out, in, out.

She chuckled, oblivious to his turmoil, distracted by his tight embrace. "I know, but I need to check what I have, lest it goes to waste. Luckily, with Christmas coming up and anticipating the opulent meals with Harry and the Weasleys, I didn't stock much, but what little I have I intend to use. Would you like a glass of wine, before dinner?"

"I would prefer a different receptacle than a glass, like the skin of your stomach, but wine sounds good," he mumbled into her hair; anything to numb the uproar in his mind.

She chuckled again. "Well, now, you get a glass. Everything else will have to wait until later." She let herself be turned around to face Draco and her mouth explored by his tongue in a deep cavern expedition. She was so captivated by it that she kept her eyes closed and her lips open after he had stopped and pulled back. Only when she felt the air from his snort on her face and his finger flip under her chin, did she open her eyes and grinned into his face.

Draco Malfoy tried to pull up his usual smirk, he really did. Blast it all to hell, why couldn't he control his face anymore like he used to? Hermione had seen, as soon as she had actually looked at his face that his face muscles worked hard on an expression that they should know in his sleep. And he could see that she'd seen because she stopped short.

"What happened?"

Draco escaped her gaze and looked over to the window where a couple of herb pots were leading a happy life. Leave it to Granger to even make potted plants happy. "What do you mean?" was all he could get out. Not even lying worked like it used to.

She put a hand on his cheek and stroked her thumb over it in caress. "Draco, don't even try. You look like you've been shocked out of your shoes. What did she say?"

He turned his head back to the countertop behind her but wouldn't look in her face. She took it as a good sign that he at least turned partially to her, even though he regarded her cherry tomatoes as if they had done him something terribly wrong.

"She wanted to know how to proceed in the Greengrass issue." He spoke without intonation, as if observing the weather.

Hermione nodded. "And?" That had been expected. Whatever happened afterward was the crucial part, she knew.

His forehead furrowed, he tried to wriggle himself out of her question. "Do you have to be so nosy, Granger?"

Even though this was by far the mildest rebuke he had ever said to her, she knew that he was upset with what was on his mind. And that in itself was unusual, because Draco Malfoy was only ever angered and furious but almost never upset. Except for that one time when she found him in the classroom and from Harry's telling, the night on the Astronomy tower.

But they knew it wasn't going to be easy. She just had a relapse of doubt in his library a few hours ago and he had just talked to his mother who had been less than enthusiastic to see Hermione coming home with him, to put it mildly. These were only the first incidents in a long line of just the same. It would take a long time to be entirely at peace with their situation. He reached forward to grab something from the counter behind her.

"What did she say about me, Draco?" She spoke as if with a frightened child. She took a tomato out of his hand and put it back on the counter. She didn't want him to squish it in his obvious fury and spread the juice all over her shirt.

He gazed back to her with the face of somebody who wanted to spit in her face. Hermione wasn't concerned, she knew it as an expression of his anger, and they were way past such pettiness. "She wanted to know why I chose you and if you were so good in bed that I would forget my place."

Hermione's eyebrows hit the ceiling. She had expected quite a bit but not that. When it sank in however, she couldn't hide the fact that the thought made her face muscles twitch.

"And am I?" she managed to bring out before the upcoming giggling made her speech unintelligible.

It was a sign of his fury that he didn't get the joke. He looked at her with eyes blazing incredulity. "How can you laugh? Are you what?"

Hermione giggled. "Am I so good in bed that you forget your place? Do I make you forget who you are, Draco Malfoy, by shagging you? Because to someone like me, that's quite a compliment." And then she continued her giggling without constraint. All the nervous tension she felt while in the Manor, keeping her memories in check about writhing in pain on the Drawing room floor, about Narcissa Malfoy's less than friendly welcome, about the splendour in the Manor she didn't quite feel comfortable with, being faced with a library that contained books over books that handled her as a second class human being, even being introduced without knowing the proper etiquette, in short, while being confronted with Draco's past and status in life bubbled out of her. When he looked at her perplexed, she continued:

"Am I bewitching you, do I have you under my powers, have I made you my willing slave by giving you a love potion?" That had still been funny, but her tone became angrier and angrier. She was mocking dramatically. "Because I am Hermione Granger, the all-mighty, I snatched up Draco Malfoy, the powerful heir to the Malfoy dynasty because I have nothing better to do. If I was so powerful why didn't I take Harry Potter of all people? Surely, being a friend of Harry would have made it very easy for me to ensnare him. Why did I choose Draco Malfoy? For revenge? Did I want to steal away the Malfoy heir, make him unable to marry a proper pureblood because I want to besmirch the house of Malfoy as revenge for being tortured? What?"

Draco snapped out of his own anger when he felt Hermione tip from amusement to angry desperation. He wouldn't be able to help her while steaming in his own fury. And her shaking anger felt highly uncomfortable, pounding against his barriers, not the least because his background was responsible for it. It wasn't guilt what he felt, guilt over exposing Hermione to his world because she would have to face it eventually, they both knew it. No, it was more of regret that she was so shaken about it. He wasn't really surprised that she turned from giggling to root shaking anger in seconds. They were on an emotional roller coaster in their situation; it would have to go up and down, it was only natural. But he had overestimated her resilience because she had been so calm while sitting next to him. He just wished he could buffer her better. He felt her shaking two ways, through the compow and physically, and it shook him likewise. Not a pleasant feeling, he decided.

Draco wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest, fitted her face into the crook of his neck and breathed calming hot air in her hair and on her forehead. He felt her trembling and stroked soothingly over her back.

"Why are people so stupid?" she kept ranting against his skin. "Either they loath or they are afraid of a muggleborn witch. I was so happy when I got my letter from Hogwarts. Finally, I knew why I was so different from the other kids. Finally, it made sense that I could make my silverware hover over my plate. Finally, I knew why Olive Jensen from two houses down grew a moustache overnight because she had made fun of my teeth and my hair and my books. Finally, I thought I knew my place. I was special, I could do magic, I would belong. And then I came to Hogwarts and I didn't belong. Again. Nobody wanted me. Until Harry did." She sniffed and he stroked her hair calmingly. Smartly, Draco didn't say anything. He had been one of them, who didn't want her around. He let her continue her rant.

"You want to know why I'm so loyal to him? That's why. He took me under his wings when I had nowhere to go. He was eleven years old and he couldn't remember anybody giving him any love but when I was in need, he thought of me, and he saved me from the troll. Ron helped, but Harry made him, I know it. I love him because he gave me the best gift ever. He taught me that you have to love yourself first if you want other people to love you."

Draco froze. "You love Potter?"

Hermione pulled back a little, so that she could look at him and search for a tissue in her pocket as well. "Like the brother I never had, as a best friend, as a comrade in arms, as the savoir. Not as a life-partner. I wouldn't ever want to shag him, if that's what you mean."

Draco face's showed his inner turmoil. "Are you certain?"

"Yes," she nodded vehemently, while blowing her nose. "I'm absolutely certain that I don't ever want to bed him. I don't desire him. I have you for that."

"Do you, now?" he snarled and withdrew a bit, unsure from her sudden love declaration for Potter. Had he overthrown his relationship with his mother for a woman who had moon-eyes for Potter the saviour?

Hermione pulled him back against his reservation. "Draco, Harry has in Ginny all he could ever want from a woman and I want what they have, but not with Harry. I know Harry better than I know my books and that's saying something. He's not who I want as a life-partner. I will always feel privileged that I was able to connect with him the way I have, and happy that I could help him as much as I have. If I had wanted him, I would have taken him while we were out in the wilderness, alone for weeks on end, searching for horcruxes. He was so desperate at times that I'm sure even I could have seduced him. But I didn't because I don't want him as a man."

"What do you mean, even you could have seduced him? Potter actually knows how to use it?" Draco snarled, still uncertain what to make out of Hermione's love declaration for Harry Potter.

When Hermione saw him glaring at her, she shoved all the things on the counter to the side with one arm behind her and hopped up on the countertop, which brought her face to approximately the same height as his. From there, she grabbed his collar and pulled him between her legs and smooched a big fat kiss right on his mouth. "My platonic love to Harry is not the point here. I give the question back to you, Draco Malfoy. Would you want to go back to what we were before? Connected but indifferent?"

He lowered his head and shook it, staring at her jeans-clad legs. "I couldn't, even if I wanted to, Granger."

"Do you feel bewitched by me?" Hermione continued soberly.

He looked back up at her and snorted. "Yes, but not in the way you mean."

Hermione tilted her head. "What do I mean?"

"You mean, did you curse me and take away my free will. And no, you didn't. The same way the compow didn't." Draco regarded her soberly.

She held his gaze the same way. "Alright. Since we are both in full possession of rational thought and under no will-changing magic, let's decide, do you want to continue what we started, the dating? We both know there will be many more situations where we will encounter people, close friends, family members even, who will not understand that we appear together."

He equally held her gaze. Could he ever give up being able to look into her warm eyes as he did just then? Kiss her pliable pink lips? Touch her and feel her react to his touch, feel her warmth? Could he turn around and forget what they had, go back to his traditional pureblood ways because it was easier in the grand scheme of things?

No. He couldn't. He would dry-freeze before he reached his house. It would dry-freeze his innards and they would crack and crumble to dust. There was no turning back.

He realized this was what had driven Potter, on and on in his quest to beat Voldemort. Some things you just couldn't turn away from. You had to see them through. There was no way around them, no short-cut, and no detour. But despite the drive to see things through, how would they negotiate the coming difficulties? He was still a Malfoy and he didn't need to make his life unnecessarily difficult.

Feeling drawn into her by his thoughts, he leaned forward and put his hands next to her hips, making Hermione glide her hands from his collar up and around his neck where they stayed, before he said: "In the safety of your apartment it sounds incredibly stupid to talk about theoretical people who wouldn't believe us. But what will we do next time?"

Hermione smiled a slim smile. "You'll dazzle them with your wit with minimal snarkiness and I'll lecture them about the importance of forgiveness in the grand scheme of things."

He snorted and lowered his head to nip at her collarbone, tempted by her closeness just to touch. "I want to see that. No, actually, I don't. I could possibly side with the people against us, just to stop you."

She slapped his shoulder. "Be serious. Or we'll hex them to kingdom come. That shouldn't be a problem with the compow. Or why don't you try not to antagonize people the moment you open your mouth? That would get you a long way. Honestly, we'll just have to take the situations one at a time. We are smart, the two of us together, we should be able to outmanoeuvre the opposition. If we are certain that we want to do this. You haven't answered my question yet."

He rested his forehead on her shoulder to avoid looking at her and spoke into her chest, with her warm hands lying on his neck, her fingers playing with strands of his hair. It made him almost shiver, her light touch on his skin. "It's difficult not to oppose people if they are so dunderheaded all the time. And Granger, you do make me forget my place at times. Not by shagging alone, but from time to time I forget who I am and don't feel like the Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater, son of Lucius Malfoy, definite Death Eater, almost killer of Dumbledore, well, you get the idea. It feels so good to get rid of the baggage and just be. I couldn't give this up even if I wanted to. I would go insane." He sneaked his arms around to her back to pull her closer into him.

"Well, you don't have to give it up right now. And maybe you'll learn one day on your own," Hermione supplemented quietly, closing her legs behind his back automatically because she was so close to him.

"Not bloody likely, Granger." He lifted his head and smirked in her face. "There's the additional benefit of exceptional shagging."

"Ah, I wondered when you would come back to that," Hermione huffed. "I would have been worried if you hadn't tried to reduce me again to a sex object." With her huff she had raised her head to the ceiling. Draco kissed her exposed throat and pulled her head back down with a nibble on her chin and guided her face so that her lips were aligned with his.

"Hmhm, sex object, absolutely. When can we go next?" He gave her a few pecks.

She chuckled and dug her hands fully in his hair, savouring the softness gliding through her fingers.

"You know, I just thought a while ago that it should have a name, the way you stroke over my head and through my hair," Draco spoke into her face with his eyes closed in delight.

"Hm," Hermione did, with a thoughtful half smile. "The Draco-Malfoy-Scalp-Massage, DMSM in short."

"That sounds almost kinky," he chuckled against her lips. "But fitting."

"Yes, well, I've been known to get it right at times."

With an "I know you have," he pulled her closer and snogged the living daylight out of her. There was no way he could give this up, these peaceful moments of light bantering with Hermione, with the opportunity to snog his heart out. And well, more.

"I'm getting used to being snogged out of my wits," Hermione admitted, catching her breath, when Draco pulled back after a while.

"And I'm getting used to have my prick pulled up with every snog. It likes its upright position."

"A propos getting used to: I think that we should visit your mother soon again. She needs to get used to the fact that you won't be around the Manor that much anymore. And that you are being with me, and not by force."

Draco scowled, being reminded again. "Well, I think she got the idea. We had a little bit of a fallout just now. I'm not sure if she wants to see me again soon."

"All the more reason to try," Hermione countered.

He grinned again. "What, after you've been so jealous of her, you want to go visit her again? What if she convinces me to move back in?"

Hermione frowned abruptly and saw his face falling slightly. It seemed to make him nervous, when she became too serious too sudden. "Well, there's a certain magic that will insure that won't happen," she stated imperiously.

Draco regarded her uncertainly. "What magic?"

She quickly gripped the front of his trousers and squeezed slightly. "A certain magic producing fireworks," she grinned meaningfully. He choked over her straightforwardness (and her strong grip on his privates) and when he had recovered, he lifted her up and put her over his shoulder to pretend paddle her bottom.

"Oooh, you little minx." He growled to her laughter.

"Draco, let me down," she squeaked.

"No," he said. "I'll carry you over to the couch and paddle you to my heart's desire. Oh, I can't wait to get started."

With her still laughing, he held her over his shoulder in a fireman's hold and carried her to the living room, where he deposited her on the couch. He jumped quickly right behind to straddle her legs. She tried to fend him off with her arms but he immobilized her in his grip. After another hearty snog, he halted over her and scowled into her face.

"I'm hungry," he said.

Hermione snickered. "Me, too. Let's have dinner."

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McGonagall's cat Patronus reached them while they were sitting over dinner. Her message was that she was unfortunately detained in Siberia while recruiting a new Potions teacher for September (Slughorn wanted to go back to retirement) but she would return January 1st. She would be very pleased if they agreed to have lunch with her on New Year's Day, and they could discuss everything at that time.

When Hermione wanted to send her Patronus back to her favourite Professor, Draco stopped her by asking if she could show him how to send messages with a Patronus. A short while later, Draco's black dragon Patronus soared through the dark skies with their confirmation.

They picked up their conversation again, coming to terms with incidences from their past.

"Did you really not listen when Hagrid explained about the hippogriffs?"

"Yes, I really didn't listen. I found that Hagrid was not a good teacher and I am not alone with that assessment. Why, do you think I let it intentionally attack me and slice my arm open?"

"I wouldn't put it behind you, if just to cause trouble for Hagrid, and slack off some school work."

He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Really, Granger. It hurt, you know."

She contemplated him shrewdly. "I bet the Cruciatus hurt more."

He snorted. "It does. But I didn't choose to have the Cruciatus put on me."

"You chose to have the hippogriff attack you?

He shook his head. "It was a stupid accident. But I used it to best effect. One of my finest moments, being carried off by the oaf to the hospital wing. And then, when Potter and Weasel had to slice and skin my ingredients, ah." He smirked in reminiscence.

"See, I always thought Malfoys do whatever is necessary to achieve their goals."

"Yeah, well, I appreciate the attribution of cunning. But we rather use the circumstances than create them by hurting ourselves."

"I was rather thinking about how you got on the Slytherin Quidditch team."

Hermione was a little taken aback at Draco's face darkening when she brought that up. When he didn't reply and clenched his jaw instead, she ventured carefully to see what had crept over his mood. "Draco, what's wrong?"

Draco Malfoy looked down to the table top, not wanting to meet her eyes. He grunted once, and then explained quietly. "You were right about buying my place on the team. And I will never be able to find out if I could have earned it."

And Hermione understood by his words what had happened. She understood that Draco had wanted to get on the team but before he had been able to try out, his father had bought him in. And although all boys had been excited to fly a Nimbus 2001, it had gnawed on Draco that he hadn't even been able to show his skill before the decision had been made. And then expectations immediately became incredibly high, with Harry repeatedly besting him. It didn't mean he wasn't good. She remembered even Harry saying that Malfoy could fly. But he had never been able to show it properly, free of negative comparison. Gasping, she put her hand over her mouth, when she realized how angry he must have been that she had insulted him with the exact thing he was so caught up about, and that it had led to his first time calling her a mudblood in his anger. She stared wide-eyed at him sitting across from her.

"I'm sorry, Draco," she finally said tentatively. "I would have never said anything, had I known the whole situation. You know that, don't you?"

He shook himself out of his angry reminiscence and replied to her, but he still couldn't look into her eyes. "I know now, Granger. But at that time I was so furious. Saying "mudblood" to you was the most harmless thing that went through my mind." He snapped his mouth shut and Hermione saw his jaw muscles working hard.

She leaned over the table to grab his hand and held it tight. He squeezed her hand back but needed another minute to calm himself. Finally he exhaled and when he looked up, she saw the anger subside. He pulled on her hand, for her to get up and come around the table, and she obliged. Hermione settled on his lap, wrapped in his arms, and he nuzzled his nose into her hair over her ear and spoke: "I brought some firewhiskey back from the Manor. Have a drink with me."

She turned to face him and saw an honest expectation in his light eyes that she didn't want to disappoint. "Alright," she said against his lips and stole a quick kiss before she got up again to clean off the table and get some glasses.

"When you choked today, did you not like my firewhiskey?" Draco asked when they each had a tumbler in front of them, filled with the golden-brown liquid.

"No, it's not that. I quite like the taste of the whiskey. It's just the alcohol I have to get used to. It numbs the nose at first and makes your eyes tear up. The aftertaste is quite nice."

Draco Malfoy was stunned. "You like the taste."

Hermione turned her glass around and around, not seeing his stunned expression. "Yes, I like the taste. I just don't like the alcohol."

Draco voiced his astonishment. "I believe you are the first woman I encountered who likes the taste of firewhiskey."

Hermione shrugged. "What's not to like? It's almost like caramel, smooth, with a hint of vanilla and chocolate, spiced with pepper. I mean, really, what's not to like about it?"

He regarded her shrewdly. "Yes, indeed. What's not to like about it?"

.

**Hermione's POV:**

We talked for some more hours about our newly discovered knowledge concerning the compow, recounting the facts, what we heard from Andromeda, getting nowhere further than what we had already discussed in the library; we sipped firewhiskey and wine, not wanting to get drunk, until we couldn't hold our eyes open anymore and had to admit defeat. It had felt very comfortable with Draco in my apartment and I was appropriately drowsy.

While Draco made a beeline to the bathroom, I stumbled over to my bedroom and quickly changed into my nightshirt. A quick "scourgify" was sufficient enough for dental hygiene that night (daughter of dentists, the shame) and then I fell into bed with my face forward. I managed to pull my feet in after me but that was the extend of it. While I grabbled for the blanket to cover myself, I saw Draco come into the bedroom in all his naked glory. He comfortably made the way from the door to my bed under my scrutiny, one prime example of a man, long muscled legs, trim frame, taut stomach, shoulders comparably broad on his otherwise slim frame, hips slim with the typical male handle and one wand hanging in his hand and one between his legs. I almost giggled when I thought about my own private joke. Which one is longer, which is more versatile, oh, well, it's a tie, I fooled around in my mind, until I had his prick almost poking me in the eye because he stood right in front of me. I almost snapped at it. He chuckled when he saw me regarding his body extensively but skipped the "Like what you see?" question. We'd had enough of that.

"Will you scoot over and shall I climb over you?" he asked, grinning.

"Well, that would depend on the advantage of each alternative. If, for example …"

He laughed and didn't let me finish. He took matters in his own hand and with a swish of his wand he levitated me over to the other side of my bed and then climbed in behind me, pulling me back to his front, once he had covered himself with the blanket. He put his hand on my behind, then my stomach until he found a good hold on my hand in front of my chest, and breathed into my neck.

"Why don't you sleep in the nude?" he asked quietly, once he had settled in.

"I get cold during the night," I mumbled back sleepily.

He scoffed: "Are you a witch, or not? What about warming charms?"

"Oh," I made. It had never occurred to me. He snorted and cast a warming charm over the bed, then snuggled back against me. It was entirely too comfortable with him in my bed. Ron had never been this cuddly. He had usually just rolled over and passed out. But Draco's scent in my nose, his warm arm around me, his soft breathing in my ear, his warm body in my back, it was too good to be true.

Facing the facts, in the seclusion of my apartment we acted just like two normal lovers. We had gotten under each other's skin and we liked it there. We enjoyed each other's company and our intimacy. We had gone from being civil to getting to know each other through our work, learned that we could reliably work on the same intellectual level and when we had "accidentally" crossed the line to intimacy we had realized how good we were together, and how much pleasure it gave us. And now we didn't want to give it up anymore. Alone together in my apartment, we were prone to forget who we were and just enjoy what we had together.

It had nothing to do with the mutual magic, although it was responsible that we had worked as closely together as we did. I had meant what I said in his room that day: I liked being with him. I really did. It was strange because of our former animosity but our physical connection was one of a kind and I couldn't imagine relinquishing it. We had come a long way and ended up as lovers and he was a phenomenal lover. As lovers go, he was top notch, even if I didn't have much to compare him to. My blood started racing just to think about our love making.

If only the doubts wouldn't always interfere. And that was the thing: while isolated in my apartment we could forget who we were. Draco was like a different person when alone with me. When he left all these pejorative remarks of "I wouldn't expect you to…", "Somebody as low/incompetent/poor/ugly/stupid as you …", "Don't tell me you didn't know…" out of his speaking, he was a rather interesting person to talk to. But when faced with other people who had their own expectations of us, we got on thin ice. And additionally, we had to deal with the fact that we used to loath each other and how it came to pass that we didn't anymore. It was like re-training your brain.

I would have to build good memories with him, and do things to counteract the fact of our original animosity of the first five years of our acquaintance. But if he remained as amicable and easy going as he was that night over dinner, we would fare well.

"Good night, Granger," he breathed in my ear.

"Good night, Draco," I mumbled back, and comfortably snuggled into his male warmth, my nose satiated with his delicious smell, I fell asleep.

**.**

I woke up in the middle of the night from my nightmares. I wasn't drenched in sweat but re-experiencing Bellatrix bent over me with her knife in Malfoy Manor was enough to shake my consciousness awake and make me shoot up in bed to an upright position. My visit to the Manor must have kicked something loose. All the nervous tension and Narcissa Malfoy's obvious dislike of my closeness to Draco must have seeped through my mental filters as a threatening dream. But when I came to, I realized that it was cosy warm because there was a warm male body in my bed whose one arm had been draped over my waist and was now lying in my lap.

I lay back down and cuddled comfortably into Draco's body behind me until I realized that he was shaking violently. I tried to wriggle myself out of his embrace again but he clung to me and whimpered. When I turned around in his arms, I saw the sweat on his forehead, as far as the street light coming in through the shades allowed, and a few strands of hair sticking to it and his normally handsome face painfully distorted. He tossed his head back and forth and panted through his mouth as if he was running. Clearly, he was having a nightmare. I stroked his sweaty face and he whimpered again. He clenched his left arm as if he felt pain there. I couldn't make out any words he mumbled but it didn't matter anyway. We all tried to come to terms with the terrors of our war. I shook him to wake up and spoke to him, but it took me several tries for him to open his eyes. When he finally did, he looked terrified and disoriented.

"Draco, it's me, it's alright," I whispered several times, stroking his face and wet hair before I was able to get through to him. Even my magic stroking didn't have an immediate effect. When I finally did get through, his eyes cleared with recognition and he tightened his arms around me, pulling me very tight to his front. He scooted a little down, so he could dig his face into my throat, inhaling deeply. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held this tall man against my chest, like a mother holds a crying child.

And crying he did. He wept, he sobbed, he wailed, he whimpered it all out, his pains, his despair, his fears, his helplessness, and his fury over himself; everything he had held in for years it seemed. It was more than bizarre. Here was one of the most eligible bachelors of the wizarding world, sought after by many women for his connections, money and powerful standing as a pureblood wizard, his sexual prowess and his handsome looks, held by me, Hermione Granger, muggleborn, bookworm extraordinaire, teacher's pet and certainly not the most stellar in the looks department, when he cried his heart out. He trusted me to stay overnight with, knowing that he would have nightmares eventually. Because this was not the first time. We all had nightmares from the war. Draco and I had already talked about which were the worst. He trusted me to hold him together when he fell apart.

What had started out as a half-hearted offer more than two years ago in an empty classroom had come around full term. I kissed his face and stroked through his hair and rocked him and spoke quietly that everything was alright, that the terror was over, that the monster was dead. Thank Harry. I held him and cradled him and soothed him and comforted him.

In that moment, I understood why he had become such a womanizer: sexual exhaustion numbs your brain, it relaxes you and you sleep deeper. But he could never stay with one woman for long or even overnight. He needed the company to distract him from his terror, but he never got close enough to share his nightmares with anyone. I could imagine that he felt embarrassed that he even had them. It wouldn't have been good for his image, if the rumour had spread that the great Draco Malfoy had nightmares about his time in the service of Voldemort. He definitely wouldn't have wanted to show it to just anybody.

And I also finally understood that his womanizing times were over. I was his perfect match. Sexual bliss we had in abundance, surprisingly, but I could likewise take on every other facet of him and I had the right counter for it. I can't say why and how I did it. I just knew what was right. I realized that it would have been unnatural not to stay together. He was mine. And as I had already realized this morning, by the fact that I was highly enthralled by the physical pleasures he was giving me and that I couldn't live without anymore, I was his.

I held him until he had exhausted himself and fell asleep again in my arms. I stroked his now relaxed face again and kissed his forehead. This handsome man was going to sleep in my bed from now on every night. This was my reward for all the hardship I had been through, the bliss with him. And by the purple light of our compow I decided, I was going to take it. I deserved it. Screw everybody who didn't see it that way. My body already reacted to every other female threat to take him away, even his mother, for crying out loud. It was time that my brain came to the same conclusion. I was going to take that leap of faith and see where it carried me. I thought, I am Hermione Granger and I take this man as mine.

.

_A/N: Yeah, you go, Hermione. _

_._

_Okay, so this chapter is on the short side but I had to cut it because together with the next chapter as it originally was, it would have had some 14.000 words. Very long. This is a better size. Okay, so next chapter, we'll get down to business again._

_P.S.: Writing about Hermione's nervousness while being in the Manor I realized that I didn't really do any of that. There was so much going on in that chapter that I neglected Hermione's emotions in depth before and while in the Manor. Even though she was certainly distracted by Andromeda's presence and her explanations regarding the energy, I should have paid more attention to her emotional state. Another point for the editing when I'm done with this version._

_Let me know if you think more things are missing, need to be better explained (we'll get to more about the compow, you have to be patient about that), etc._

_Thanks for all your help_

_M_


	32. Clarity

_Sorry, guys, about the repeated upload with the last chapter. There was something wrong with fanfiction when I did it, last week. I didn't get the confirmation until the next morning and I thought it didn't work and stuff. Painful. No offense to fanfiction, though._

_Thanks for reviews go to, as usual in order of arrival (new people this time, too): Phnxgirl, Gryff-Slytherin, articcat621, nikky98 (thanks for the good advice), and Booklover1608 (you and me both: yeah, Hermione)._

_This week is the Easter week and the actual work week is very short and I give the next chapter early because I don't know if I can upload again before next weekend (because I'm away). And then would the next chapter be due. And the next one, I really, really want to give to you: the dinner at Harry's. It's one of my favourites._

_But this one I also like very much because we are getting more info about what Draco and Hermione actually bring to the table for the compow. Pay attention. And as promised, there is more "action" in this chapter (fans herself, what I come up with in my smutty mind)._

_A propos:_

_A word of caution, especially since this is another explicit chapter: I check out every account owner who I get an email about (it's still manageable), be it for story alerts, reviews or favourites, just to see what else they read (for tips) and so on. I've had a few account owners who are only 14 or 15 or in their late teens, according to their profile. _

_Young ones: There is a reason why this and other stories are marked as "Mature only", especially if they contain sexually graphic, explicit parts like my story. These parts have a function in the story but it doesn't change the fact that they are graphic. Please read them with caution, young ones. They are highly idealized and do not reflect reality. Especially when they contain violence. There is no way that somebody all of a sudden explodes in lust when they are being sexually assaulted. It's a fantasy. We write our stories as we do, because it is fun to imagine how it could be, how kinky, how hot, and what have you. We let our imagination play but keep in mind that these scenes are highly unrealistic, okay? They are stories. Like fairy tales. Just stories. And even without the moral sometimes._

_Well, with these words and another warning, let my story continue._

_._

_A/N: EXPLICIT – EXPLICIT – EXPLICIT – Ah, you know the drill._

_._

_DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to JK Rowling and no profits whatsoever are being made from this story (what a pity) besides the benefit of the soul-enhancing satisfaction of getting this fantastic story out of my head and the reviews I get for it. Here goes:_

**.**

**Chapter 25: Clarity**

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When Hermione Granger woke up the next morning, it took her a moment of orientation to realize that there was a warm hand stroking her side. It went from her waist under her sleep shirt down her hips to her bum, halfway down her thigh and back up. It went just by the area on the sway of her back that she would have liked touched the most and so, on its next turn she tilted her hip forward a bit, so that the hand glided further back. It touched the spot she had been aiming for and she breathed a luxurious "Hmm".

Hearing a snort, she opened her eyes slowly and looked unexpectedly at a male shoulder and chest with a zigzagging scar instead of a face. The face belonging to the chest, framed in white blond strands of sleep tussled hair, she discovered when she looked up, was way above her, looking down with amusement shining in clear slate grey eyes. She really liked his hair all tussled up. It gave him a rakish and at ease appearance that was inconceivable with the Draco Malfoy she had grown up with while in school. The one in school had always looked impeccable, with his hair slicked back and his clothing lint free. This look made him more approachable. It made her aware that the image she had seen while in school had been just one layer of Draco Malfoy and that there were so many more to discover; especially in privacy.

The lips in the face were only very slightly stretched into a smile but that was to be expected. Hermione didn't expect Draco Malfoy to become a through and through happy and silly person all of a sudden. In fact, she would have been highly disturbed were he to become a buffoon who cracked up laughing and joking at every opportunity.

She put one hand forward and placed it on the chest, right over the scar. When the amusement in the eyes faded visibly, the shoulders tensed and the entire face morphed into a frown, she said: "Hi" and waited. Hermione saw the struggle in his eyes: whether to make a snide remark over the fact that she had seen him crying over nightmares, whether to threaten her if she ever told anybody or whether to thank her or to ignore the entire issue and move on to more pleasant activities. When a minute passed and then another, she decided to give him an opening and moved her hand slowly further down his front; from the scar over his pecs, to the ribs, to the taut stomach, to the blond hair line and into the hair to the base of his soft skinned appendix. At the same time, she bent forward and kissed his chest and throat and up to his jaw.

When she pulled back, she saw his piercing glance rest on her and said with a small smile: "I woke up from a nightmare myself, last night. It was good to have a warm body next to me."

Hermione continued to nip sensually on his chin at the same time as moving her hand further down to take a firm grip of his most prominent feature. He inhaled deeply and she felt the blood shooting into his prick and straighten up into her hand. She moved her hand down and up and saw his shoulders give up a little of their tension. She moved her hand again and on the upstroke glided her heel of the hand over the tip. Next thing she knew was that Draco held her face and he kissed her the way she liked the most: enclosing and pulling her lips with his and stroking over their underside with his tongue. She put her tongue out to play with his and soon they were engaged in serious snogging while she continued to massage his prick. He adjusted her grip once, putting her thumb where the heel of her hand used to be, and when she liberally spread the pre-cum over the tip, he moaned into her mouth and pushed his hips against her hand.

Hermione wasn't surprised anymore by the effect he had on her. As astonishing as it still was, she knew that he could get her juices flowing just by kissing her the right way. She felt them collect between her thighs with the heat spreading and was not at all surprised when his hand made its way between her legs and found her fully prepared to receive him smoothly. In fact, she wasn't only fully prepared, she downright itched for it. She was very pleased therefore when he breathlessly requested: "I want to come in, Hermione. Or I'll explode in your hands and that would be such a waste."

Compliantly, she turned further back. He followed, but hesitated to align himself over her.

"What is it?" she wondered. He hadn't yet hesitated to enter her ever.

Nibbling on her collar bone, he said: "From behind. I want you from behind."

Hermione twitched and swallowed. Seeing her trepidation written clearly in her face, Draco bent over her, and breathed heavily into her ear while kissing the side of her face. "Not in your arse. Just you on all fours and me behind. Please."

She still hesitated, even though he asked nicely. Wasn't that a sign of submission? She had comforted him last night and now he wanted to degrade her? Did he need to prove his control? The fact that she had never before heard Draco Malfoy asking permission for anything, and that it should tell her something that he did it now, escaped her a little in her trepidation.

Sensing the reason for her hesitation, he kept talking, while kissing up her shoulder, her throat and down to her breasts and back up. "We've already done it. Twice. It's just a slightly different position." Kissing her face all over, he urged her. "You'll like it. Trust me. It feels great. I promise."

Still sceptical, she stirred but slowly. Impatiently kissing her but trying to pull her up with his lips, he put one more on top. "Take your wand. And if you don't like it, you can stick-charm me to the wall and have your way with me any way you like." That finally made her decision. Her eyes lightened up when she realized how much control he was giving her. It meant the world to her. She giggled.

"Stick you to the wall?"

"And have your way with me, absolutely," he confirmed while he helped her up. He pulled on her waist impatiently. She got up on her knees and, grabbing her wand from the nightstand, turned around to present her backside to her excited lover. He positioned himself right behind her and she felt the head of his prick nudge and wiggle close to her entrance.

Draco put his hands on her bum and stroked down the backside of her thighs, the fingertips on the inside, and back up, then over her back all the way to her shoulders, pulling her sleep shirt up and over her head with it, then around and down her sides back to her waist. She liked his hands on her body and exhaled and relaxed into his stroking. Hermione felt him bending forward and the head pressing a little into her soft and moistened tissue but Draco didn't push in. Instead, she felt his lips on her back and when he stroked his hands forward again and around to her breasts where he took hold, she heard him murmur against her skin: "Merlin, I love this long back and round little arse," and it spread the warmth in her lower belly. He hadn't been generous with pleasantries, but then, she hadn't expected any from Draco Malfoy of all people. The fact that he gave her any surprised her very pleasantly. After another few kisses and strokes over her breasts, he asked: "Ready?"

Steeling her resolve, she pushed her breasts into his stroking hands and nodded. She hadn't been disappointed yet. Draco Malfoy had guided her to unknown heights so far, why would he stop now, she figured. She had to trust him. In any case, she had her wand.

Even though she'd had him enter her several times by now, it was still an overwhelming sensation. Entirely overwhelming this time, though, was not only his prick pushing into her folds but the deep groan that escaped Draco when it did. Hermione felt the warm air flow over her back from his strong exhalation and his shuddering by the way his thighs fluttered against her backside.

"Bloody hell, Granger, you have no idea how great this feels," she heard him speaking against her spine. He peppered it with kisses while he moved his shaft inside, holding her waist or stroking her breasts or stomach at the same time. He was so much taller than she that he could comfortable reach around. When he had reached the end of her channel, he rested for a bit and Hermione heard him inhale and exhale deeply to get a grip of the sensations. But it was in vain.

As soon as he moved again he started one constant stream of moaning and cursing, in words and sounds. She knew that he was outspoken, that he used his means of expression very efficiently, his calculated voice in intonation and choice of words, his mimic, even his body language to express exactly what he wanted to have you see and hear. But she had never heard him give up his control so much. She had never thought he could.

And as these moments of clarity and understanding came in abundance these days, spending so much intimate time with Draco Malfoy, she understood that his cold demeanour was a disguise most of the times, a mask to hide the passionate and hot-blooded young man deep inside. It explained why he had suffered so much, that one night in the classroom. It also explained why he never stuck around any intimate partner. He wasn't cold-hearted, like his father, who likely had been an excellent example to emulate. He wasn't indifferent to the fates of the people around him, or supercilious; he just pretended to be as was expected of him and with great proficiency. He played his role as his father had trained him, likely with force, and he played it well because he was smart enough to foresee other people's behaviour, through constant observation. He likely played it so well that he sometimes forgot that he only played it.

He would always be rather cunning than courageous, disparaging, dismissive, disdainful and snide than warm, complaisant, sympathetic, or pleasant even. It was rather natural for him to be that way, because he had practised it for so long. But that didn't mean he had no feelings. His cold exterior didn't mean that he was cold on the inside as well. There was hot blood running in his veins. And sometimes, it simply boiled to the surface and he couldn't contain it. At times, when confronted with situations that truly went against his character, his true nature broke through. In those moments, he snarled particularly fierce because he was likely reminded that he only played a role; and at times, it must have been freaking hard to get back into his chosen character. And Hermione had likely discovered him in one of those moments. And because of the way she had handled that moment, the way she had touched him and not given up on him, he was now here with her, giving and receiving pleasure and letting go of his mask.

This clarity in such a moment made her want to embrace him rather than to kneel in front of him with her backside turned. It did feel great, though, he had been right. In this position, he pushed downward on the one spot in her front wall, and with every move he grated over it, even better than his fingers had done before. It felt marvellous. Not wanting to change her position, she came up from her arms, her wand forgotten over the shock of her realisation, and stretched them out to the back, embracing him backwards.

He adjusted to her move immediately, straightened up himself and stroked his hands over her front, preventing her from falling back forward. At the same time, he dug his nose and face into her hair and the side of her face around her ear. He took her earlobe between his teeth gently and his panting directly in her ear sent shivers down her spine in excitement. Having her hands behind his back, she put them on his backside and stroked them down to his bum and took his cheeks in a firm grip. His answering moan of "Merlin, Granger …" tapped something sensitive inside her and she shivered and couldn't hold herself up anymore and had to fall back on her arms for additional support.

When he pulled back a little from her thighs, she just knew that he was watching it, his prick moving in and out. It gave her a jolt in the apex between her legs, making her inner muscles convulse, to imagine how it would look, his moving in and out. But it only lasted a few seconds, and then he was back leaning over her backside, pumping into her with renewed speed, moaning loudly, stroking his hands up and down her back, to her shoulders, back to her hips and retour. She loved it, how he touched her and how it sent hot waves over her, down her chest, up her face, down into her womb when he did. She barely negotiated the small edge between immeasurable pleasure and climax but it was too intense to simply fall apart.

"Gawds, Granger, you should see it. I can't watch, it's too freaking hot. Merlin," he spoke through clenched teeth.

And then she felt his hand between her legs, stimulating her swollen knob, until after only a few strokes she fell apart with shaking limbs and a wild cry; a cry of frustration almost, because he had pushed her over and finished it for her when she was enjoying this so much. She felt a little defiant for being done already when Draco was clearly still in the middle of it. She had wanted to have more of it.

Her arms were giving out from the shaking and she lowered her front to the bed, resting her burning cheeks against the cool sheets. She looked directly at her wand, halfway hidden under a sheet, and it reminded her of the other wand like object that was still thrusting into her and giving her immense pleasure. She shuddered again with relish. At this moment, magic and all its implications were the furthest from her mind.

"Haa, Granger, no, you can't go lower. Don't do that, you can't do that," he whimpered.

And she didn't care how it could have possibly looked like either; Hermione Granger on her knees, her back up high, her face lying on the bed surface and an overexcited Draco Malfoy behind her, pounding into her soft tissue as if his life depended on it. There was nobody here but her and Draco, who, judged by the sounds he was making, was having the fuck of his life. Despite, or perhaps because of her positioning, Hermione felt powerful being able to give this to him. She stretched her arms out over her head and clenched her entire sated body from head to toe lasciviously, like a cat.

Feeling her clench her inner muscles in after-climax, he picked up speed one more time, because time was precious, and slamming into her and moaning loudly, he burst into her depth with a series of cries and howls that reflected the fireworks he was going through. Pushing in, he bent forward and rested his sweaty forehead on her back, gripping her hips tightly to hold her in place, while he wheezed and moaned his release out. Hermione felt that it lasted forever until he whimpered: "I have to lie down, Hermione."

He fell down next to her like a wet sack and pulled her close, front to front. He nuzzled his face into her hair and groaned: "Bloody hell, Granger, why are you doing this to me?"

Hermione giggled weakly, trying to recover herself. "You wanted it."

He groaned again in post-coital pain-pleasure. "You shouldn't have let me. A true judgment error. We can't do that yet. Maybe a few years down the road when we get entirely bored with our usual routine. You chafed it raw." He stopped to look down for a second and whimpered: "Is it bleeding?"

A few years down the road. He really meant to stay right where he was. She giggled again. "No, it's just a bit red, as is your face. It'll recover."

"Easy for you to say. If I die in your bed today, you have nobody to blame but yourself," he whined in true Malfoy fashion, putting his hands over his flushed face.

Hermione smiled. "I wondered when the true Malfoy would make an appearance. We'll have to make sure that you won't die, then, won't we?"

"The true Malfoy?" Draco asked suspiciously, peeking through the slits between his fingers.

Hermione smiled indulgently. "Yes, the one that I've known since I started at Hogwarts; the one that whines and complains and blames others and hides behind his father's importance."

He pulled his hands half way down his face and hid only his frowning mouth behind them. "That's how you saw me?"

Hermione shrugged. "We all did. Want to hear more?"

"Certainly, get it out while you're at it," he said drily, pulling his hands finally off.

Hermione leaned back and watched her ceiling. The crack was still there. She would really have to get on it. "Smart-assed, pompous, prejudiced against muggleborns, good looking but unbearable in conversation, excellent Quidditch player but unfortunately always second behind Harry, Snape's favourite, self-believed centre of the universe with a head so big I was always surprised that it fit into the Great Hall."

"Alright, alright, I get it." Draco growled. He eyed the woman, who had given him incredible pleasure and was likewise able to make him incredible irritated, with a wary expression. She glanced back unconcerned.

"I am not going to apologize for being a Malfoy." He spoke in a measured pace as if he wasn't sure how to proceed.

"I wouldn't expect you to," Hermione took the uncertainty of him. "And you already apologized for the way you behaved due to your prejudices, conversations with you are going swimmingly and the centre of the universe idea got lost along the way, I presume. You are still smart and not so much an ass anymore and you still play Quidditch well, that can't be helped. I actually had a discussion about that with three other Quidditch players. Two of them agreed that you were an exceptional flyer, and the third was Ginny Weasley."

"She's a good flyer," Draco admitted quietly.

"Yes," Hermione growled. "But don't get any ideas. She's with Harry."

Draco looked at her surprised and a little amused. "I wasn't even thinking about anything but that she's a good flyer." Hermione snorted. "And I never was Snape's favourite," he added.

"Sure," Hermione said with an eye roll. "If not you, who was his favourite?"

"Does a teacher need to have a favourite?" he admonished her. And when she snorted again, he added, looking at the ceiling with her: "He was always nice to me because he needed to keep up the pretence of being in the Malfoy pocket. He couldn't have feigned a friendship with my father and the other Death Eaters all the while treating me and the other sons and daughters like regular students. And I do like potions, he appreciated that. And  
>I am his godson. He came to all my birthdays, when I was at home. You actually have a crack in your ceiling, you should fix that. Take your wand, say "<em>Reparo<em>", be done. But," here he turned to Hermione lying next to him, who was just about to grab her wand and took her hand in his, "I believe, you were always his favourite."

Hermione's head flipped around to look at the wizard next to her. "I?"

Draco nodded.

"But he always took points of me and disregarded me in class and treated Harry and Ron harshly, who were clearly my best friends," she said totally flabbergasted. He took his wand in hand and waved it against the ceiling without muttering an incantation. The crack closed itself.

"His problems with Potter and all Gryffindors had nothing to do with you. And the weasel was just hopeless …" Draco shook his head. "And I'm not saying that he was fair. He took points off you to make you aware that you could have done better, had you put more thought into it than simply recounting school book knowledge. And he certainly wasn't affectionate. But it drove him nuts that you were so perfect in executing everything but had no real hand for potions beyond that. And that he couldn't give you extra lessons to alert you to it because of your muggleborn status. He had to keep up pretences there as well."

Hermione turned fully to him. "What do you mean, I have no real hand in potions?" she blustered. He turned a little to her and took her chin between his thumb and fingers.

Looking straight at her he said: "What I mean is that if I asked you a question regarding potion ingredients and their properties and reactions in potions, you could answer them perfectly. And you know exactly how to cut each ingredient for best effect, with regards to what has been written in the school books. But you would never go and search out a better way to prepare wormwood for a potion, for example, except if it was necessary for some reason or you came across it incidentally, because you are not inherently interested in it. Whereas Snape has always done that; fiddling with and improving potions has been his passion in life; despite his wish to teach the Dark Arts. I would have done the same had I not been too distracted by … well, other things. Do you remember how Potter got his Draught of Living Death so far advanced that one Potion class with Slughorn?"

"He did something from that stupid book. Snape's school book." Hermione snorted with burning eyes. She could still become angry that Harry had cheated in class and bested her as a result from it. Draco looked at her piercingly.

"He was working out of Snape's school books? Well, that explains a lot, because Potter is not a potioneer either. Do you want to know what he did?" When Hermione nodded he continued: "He crushed his Sopophorous bean with the edge of the silver knife and he added clockwise stirs."

Hermione stared. "He said something about clockwise stirs. I remember because it was so not in the instructions. But how do you know?"

Draco looked very calmly back at her. "I watched him. I saw that his bean exuded more liquid than should have been possible and I knew that it would improve the potion immensely. So, I observed what else he did. It was too late that day for my own potion, because I had already put my properly cut bean in, but the next one I did, I used the improvements I learned from Potter that day.

You didn't look what he was doing. You were in your own world, frizzing up your hair over the vapours from the cauldron, showing off how good you can be, following the instructions in the book to the letter, as you usually did. That drove me nuts most of the time, by the way, that you have this tremendous brain and only use it to do every perfectly and suck up to teachers and not to create something new or think outside the box. You didn't even stop to think if the school book might give you instructions that were less than perfect and if you could do something better. And that's the difference. You know how to execute everything perfectly but you don't feel the need to see if there is a better way in potion making. And Snape was very bitter about that. And we know that he had a soft heart for some muggleborns."

Hermione was quiet and looked down to Draco's chest to avoid his eyes. He was right, of course, but it was difficult to swallow. She had long realized that you couldn't learn everything from books and you could become only so and so far advanced over your peers by learning the school material ahead but she had always done her best to prove herself otherwise. To be told by Draco Malfoy, who had grown into using his magic all his life, that there was a difference between purebloods and muggleborns, because of their approach to use and understand magic and in terms of perspective, was a bitter pill though.

"Hermione, look at me," Draco said. When she wouldn't look up, he put a finger under her chin and lifted it. He kissed her and continued: "It has nothing to do with you being a muggleborn," he addressed her obvious reasons for her low spirits. "It has to do with your magic and your interest. And you can expand your horizon once you realize that you can't learn everything from books. But potion making is not your interest, not your inclination. If it was, you would know what Potter had done. Heck, you would have done it before him, with your brain. Why do you think Snape was so disappointed that he would lose the star student not only in house but also in inclination to McGonagall?"

"McGonagall? What about Professor McGonagall?" Hermione missed at least half a pound to the full.

Draco sneered but it didn't look as malicious as it used to. "What I said only applies to your potion making skills. Why do you think you were her favourite student?"

"Because I was studious and I did well in her class." Hermione still did not clue in.

"So you did in almost every class. But not every teacher considered you their prime student." He frowned impatiently and flat out told her when she still didn't understand. "You are a transformer, Hermione. It came to me when Andromeda talked about Lupin: your acceptance and my focus, it seems to resonate through every discussion we have, in many situations.

You take things in and change them, give them magical properties. You take all magic in, change it and transform it. That's how you work magic. It's very powerful what you do, because you have to be able to hold a huge amount of magic to transform it, and very few are as good at it as you are. But it's rather imprecise in comparison, there's lots of room for error, and it's not at all conducive to a potion maker. You heard what my aunt said, magic is bound to each person, bound to their character. And taking all in and transforming it, changing it for the better is what you do. Dumbledore was also very talented in that area, I've been told." He ended on a smirk.

Hermione was stunned out of her skull. To be told something so elemental about her magic by Draco Malfoy of all people, was beyond belief. In fact, she couldn't quite believe it.

"That's very personal information about me. How do you know?"

He still smirked at her obvious astonishment. "I observed you. I've seen the magic you did and I collected the information. In the end, I put a picture together."

Always the sceptic, Hermione wasn't convinced. "And what do you do?"

He grinned: "I see details. I take things apart and look at them in detail. I don't change them; I break things down to the elements they are made of. When I look at things, I analyse them and see what makes them. Which is an excellent ability to have for a potioneer."

Hermione was speechless. Draco had always been a diligent potion maker; that much was true. From what she had seen, he had always been as far advanced as she in potion making and his notes had always looked clean and structured, not like Ron's or Harry's scribbles. He was particular about his work and detail oriented. If Draco was right and his ability went beyond magic, his character reflected in his magic, if it was part of his person, he had a natural knack to see what made each person tick and in that he had sensitive information on them. It would explain perfectly why his insults stung so particularly. All he had ever needed was confirmation, if he had observed right. And insulted or affronted with his spot-on insinuations people had happily (or enraged in most cases) complied and given him fodder for his suspicions in their reactions. It was freaky.

She wanted to put him to a test. "What else do you see about me?"

Draco sighed. He had seen that coming. Testing new knowledge for validity was something Hermione did. "You don't care about your outer appearance, because you don't want it to take away from showing that you are smart as a whip, first and foremost. You think that a man should love you for how you naturally are and for your brain as well as your body, and that's why you hide it and only show it after you've proven your brain size. Which is a pity, because if you had shown your assets while in school, you wouldn't have gotten the reputation of Know-it-all prude Granger but more something along the lines of 'superwoman, brain and body'. The downside of it is that in hiding your body and preventing people from seeing and appreciating it, you think that you are not pretty because nobody tells you, because they can't see it. Everybody was awfully surprised when you cleaned up for the Yule Ball and showed that you can be just as pretty as every other girl.

You put your knowledge front and centre at every opportunity, so nobody can oversee it. As if anybody could," he scoffed. "That was one of the reasons, why I was so angry that you bonded with Potter and Weasley. They took your smartness and used it for their purposes, let you do their homework. They were never able to appreciate the size of your magic; the fact that your magic could take theirs in and fold it in half with ease. That in your OWLs year you did magic that was past NEWT level. Well, maybe Potter couldn't have known, being raised by Muggles, but the weasel should have." His eyes were stone cold and steel hard in anger.

He had taken their conversation to a different level, bringing Ron and Harry in, and on that level she could respond, even if the bit about her magic still left her uncertain. It did ring true, in a way, and for that reason she was inclined to believe him; but it was so unreal that he should have simply observed her and found something so elemental; even with his knack for observation. She would think about that later, maybe ask McGonagall when they saw her soon. "I never did their homework. I corrected what they did. And perhaps Ron was never able to appreciate my magic but you are underestimating Harry. Harry knew. And he used it whenever I offered, which was constantly, because he had a task to fulfil that makes yours look like divination homework in comparison. I was glad I could help him in any way."

"Don't say anything disparaging about my task," he spat, his relaxed face suddenly darkened. "You have no idea how it is to put the life of your parents on the line if you fail killing somebody else; to destroy your soul no matter what you do. So, maybe Potter knew what you are worth. He still wasn't above using it for his purposes."

"Draco," Hermione pleaded. "I wasn't depreciating your task. I know how hard it was. I saw you folding under its weight. But Harry's was so much bigger. So many more lives were on the line had he failed. I was glad I could help him. I would do it again in a blink. What would you have done? Why didn't you show any appreciation for me?"

"That's not the point. I wasn't free to do what I wanted to do," he snarled. "It would have been extremely dangerous for both of us if I had stalked around the castle, praising your abilities. But Ron Weasley was free to do so, and what did he do? He took you for granted and he went for that dumb Brown bird when he had you right under his nose, stupid prick. I understand that you and Potter are on a different level, but Weasley, I'll never understand."

Hermione was stumped. It slowly occurred to her that Draco must have watched her longer than since sixth year. If he had been angry that she bonded with Harry, which had been in their first year, he must have paid attention to her long before sixth year. They had held a private little truce after their run-in in that classroom, she thought, but she had never expected that Draco Malfoy had paid any special attention to her before that, beyond being on Harry's side all the time.

"Since when have you been watching me?" she whispered.

"Ever since you slapped me in third year," he grumbled reluctantly. "For you to stand up for this oaf and teach me manners was inconceivable at first. But when I'd gotten over my fury for you to even touch me, my brain couldn't stop thinking. Luckily, due to all this thinking, I didn't tell my father that you'd slapped me or we would have gotten to know a whole new level of ugly." He gripped her hip in agitation and pulled her against him. It gave her a tingle in her womb and it flashed through her mind how it would be to try it out "rough" with Draco Malfoy; how it would be if he really slapped her bottom, and grabbed her and pulled her mess of hair backward and pounded into her. She felt the heat spread out and flush her face with her tempting imaginations. The thought was titillating because in real life she would never allow him to dominate her. She was magically equally strong as he was. Hermione trusted him to be able to differentiate between a sexual game and real life, though, to never mix up the lines between game and life. With his habitual snarkiness and derogatory demeanour he was just the type to make this type of game realistic. She was almost certain that he had done things like that with other girls or women. Another tingle between her legs made her aware she'd liked to try it very much. But this was not the time. She'd have to come back to that.

Making a little note in the back of her mind, Hermione reached out to touch his cheek to calm him and herself instead. "And then what?"

Oblivious to her tempting thoughts, Draco continued his telling: "And I saw you do your magic and how beautiful you looked for the Yule ball and how you helped Potter through the Triwizard Tournament. You went with him to the Ministry, for Slytherin's sake. And I wondered if I would ever be able to command such a dedication from any person, the way you gave it to Potter. If there was anything that could distract your focus from Harry Freaking Potter. Crabbe and Goyle just followed me because they didn't know any better. And then you stumbled over me that night in the classroom. I only thought, figures, of all the people who could have discovered you, it has to be Granger, the witch you are already obsessed with. Brought it to a new level of discomfort, it did."

She ignored his comment about obsession. The magic had marked them. Perhaps it had started to equalize them when she had touched him with the slap. And then, it would have been only natural to be in each other's focus for some reason or other, magically rubbing against each other, levelling out. Perhaps they had tried to come across each other's path all these years, incited by the grating magic, but had not been able to cross, really, because of the blood issue. They had to meet eventually, away from prying eyes, free from expectancies, deep at night. Had the magic guided her steps that night to come across him, or urged him to be far away from his own house? They might never find out.

"And here we are, talking about Harry again. Let's not discuss my relationship to Harry. It's an entire book, maybe several books. We'll be here next year if we started doing that," Hermione remarked quietly.

"Well, luckily, the next year is not too far away. And I can't help it if he comes up in conversation. He is just inextricably bound to you. He's like "the man" in your thoughts, covering everything else" Draco mumbled, a little grumpy, but slowly calming. Hermione didn't answer, hung in her thoughts about what he had just disclosed to her. He didn't like it when she withdrew into herself to think things through and cut him out. He tried to connect again.

"Tell me something, Granger."

She looked up at him. "Hm?"

"Did you never think about me as anything other than Malfoy the git?"

She tilted her head in thought and looked past his ear. Had she thought about him the way he had thought about her? No. Hm, a little. She had denied herself to do that. But the urge had been there, every time they'd had a sparring match. "Well, I always was rather angry when we had collided in the hallways or in class. I wondered why you of all people could make me so angry, why your insults stung so fiercely. Now I know that this is your specialty. And I wondered from time to time why such a handsome boy could be so misguided and so repulsive. And what a pity it was that he was. And at that point I usually stopped myself thinking more about it." She looked back to him and saw his eyes gleaming.

He grinned. "You found me handsome?"

She tut-tutted. "Of course, I did. I'm not blind, you know."

His grin broadened. "You are not the only one, you know. Who finds me handsome, that is." He provoked her intentionally.

"I know," she growled. "I've seen plenty proof over the years. Girls hanging of your arms. Not a smart move, I thought, in an otherwise fairly smart boy."

"You thought I was smart?" His grin competed with a 100 Watt light bulb. Hermione's stomach clenched when she looked at his devilishly handsome face, grinning at her. Her brain fought the impulses of going in for the snog right away or trying to answer his question first and then snogging. She went with the honest answer option.

"I still think you are. Why didn't you apply yourself more in school?"

"I thought it was enough to have one know-it-all in our year. We didn't need two."

She slapped him. He chuckled and added: "Smartness is not the feature women go most for in a man. They go for a smart mouth and rather focus a little lower."

She growled. "That's not true, Malfoy, and you know it."

"What is it with the possessiveness, Granger?" His broad exhilarated grin turned into his trademark smirk.

She tried to make it sound very rational, her irrationally claiming behaviour of Draco Malfoy. She couldn't explain it either but she would rather eat dragon dung than tell him what she was afraid to tell herself: that she was falling rather hard for Draco Malfoy and likely had been for quite some time now, and that she went out of her mind, snarling, to imagine him with another woman.

"Well, it's because of our energetic connection. If I understood that correctly, we feel quite a bit of each other, especially disturbances in the mood. Now, imagine how it felt if you came back from a disappointing night with some stupid flirt and I have to work with you. It would be unbearable." She tried to keep her face straight, she really did. Something in it still must have been funny, because Draco Malfoy couldn't contain his glee and he snickered.

"Unbearable, wouldn't it be, if I came to work our compow, smelling of another woman?" he rubbed it in. Hermione saw red. Her hand darted out to weave into his hair and hold it tight close to his scalp, without pulling painfully on it. He leaned backward into her hand in delight.

"Intolerable," she pressed out between her clenched teeth.

"And what it would do to our work, unimaginable," he smirked again, with a glint in his eyes, rubbing his head into her hand, savouring.

"Absolutely right. So, in short, you can't be associated with any other woman," she barked.

"I can't, can I?" he asked with one raised eyebrow.

"No," she snapped.

"And why is that?" He bent forward right over her lips, so that everything they said afterwards made their lips almost touch against each other's.

"I just explained it. Weren't you listening?" she snarled.

He leaned further in. "Oh, I was listening, Granger dear. And all I heard was that you want me for yourself."

"Preposterous," she spluttered.

"Really?"

"Really."

"You wouldn't mind me doing this to another woman?" he asked, abutting her lips with his.

"Don't you dare," she barked.

He raised his eyebrows questioningly. "You are contradicting yourself, Granger. Why ever should I not?"

"Because you are mine," Hermione snarled, reaching the end of her tether.

"Am I?" he smirked.

"Yes."

"Do I have any saying in it?"

"Will you say anything to the contrary?" she inquired with eyes closed suspiciously to slits.

"No." He grinned.

"Then why bother?"

With a "Why indeed?" he closed the last millimetre of distance and pressed Hermione kissing into the pillow. Draco was exhilarated that Hermione claimed him for herself as much as he had realized that he wanted this witch for himself; even though she wasn't quite able to openly admit it yet, either to herself or to others. But, well, he had only yesterday arrived there himself.

As usual, the kissing got out of hand quickly and pulling on Hermione's lower lip, it struck Draco Malfoy how much he liked doing that. In his mind, he could see his own face, his own mouth pulling on her lip and he really enjoyed seeing that vision. It showed a young man with his eyes closed in indulgence, suckling on a trusting woman's lips tenderly like he was enjoying the most delicious wine from a chalice. He could see Hermione's face with her eyes closed as well, her features relaxed in enjoyment of the pleasures he was giving her. She was beautiful when he looked at her that way. Her chestnut hair strong and gleaming spread out over the pillow behind her. Her facial features smooth with rosy cheeks, her dark lashes resting on them, her pink lips a little reddened and swollen from his forceful kisses. Most beautiful was her trusting relaxation. He stroked his tongue over the inside of her lip and heard her sigh in ease, trusting his ministrations to give pleasure and no pain. Trusting him not to hurt her. She had offered to take his pain but she didn't expect him to hurt her. Trust. It made a world of difference. And it felt so good to be trusted. He had craved it all his life and now he wanted that feeling every day for the rest of it. Suckling on her lips, drinking in her presence, he wanted her to trust him every day. Because it felt so bloody good.

When they panted into their respective faces and undulated their hips against each other, Draco stretched over her and aligned his cock right at her entrance. He stretched his arms out over her head and was highly amused when Hermione dug her nose into his armpit and inhaled deeply.

"What, Granger, need a dose of Malfoy maleness?" he chuckled.

"Mmhm," she said savouring.

The chuckle died in his throat when he looked at Hermione's face, flushed from her obvious arousal from the kissing. Merlin, he was hot for this woman. He couldn't get enough of her. They had had a mind-boggling shag just half an hour ago, almost painful in intensity, and here he was, shivering because her legs wrapped around his back, ready to go again.

"Malfoy maleness coming right up," he whispered and pushed in. They both moaned at the move, as if from one voice. Draco lowered his head to her forehead and felt her pants in his face.

"Merlin, Granger, why are you so amazing?"

She chuckled. "Didn't you say I wasn't really your type?"

He frowned. "I can change my mind, can't I?"

"Hm," she mused.

He snorted. "So, maybe you have qualities that I've been missing in the women I've been previously shagging."

She growled but managed to ask: "And what qualities may those be?"

He wriggled in her for effect. "Well, for one there is this incredibly tight and hot pussy of yours that makes me see stars every time I come in."

She looked a little disappointed to be reduced to a body part. "Ah," she made.

"And maybe, just maybe, I've been looking for the wrong qualities previously."

"Or maybe you've been looking for the right qualities in the wrong places," Hermione replied drily.

Draco tilted his head. "Perhaps."

"So, what qualities exactly have you been looking for?"

That sobered him and he frowned uncertainly. After about half a minute, he quietly admitted, confirming what she had suspected all along: "Perhaps I haven't been looking for qualities at all. I've just been looking for distraction. I knew I would have to get married eventually to a woman that was chosen for her appropriateness and who I could tolerate the most, not because I had any feelings for her. I never imagined that I could find certain qualities in a woman, which would make me want to stay."

He stroked Hermione's hair out of her forehead. This tender gesture made Hermione's throat constrict and go so dry that for once, she couldn't reply. He looked demure, all sneers and smirks gone, his sharp tongue quiet, his face open and honest. For once, he didn't look like he owned the world and he wasn't so sure of himself and Hermione's heart swelled in her chest. This was a man she wanted to be there for; a man she wanted to take care of when needed. This man she wanted to fall in love with. And in that moment she was able to admit to herself that she was already more than halfway on her way. Oh, bummer.

She finally managed to swallow and the movement pulled Malfoy away from his confession. He focused on her eyes and whatever he saw there made him aware of his state and the curtains closed, obstructing Hermione's view of the pure Draco Malfoy inside. In her disappointment, she lashed out herself.

"Oho, Malfoy admitting that he's been wrong about something."

He scowled. "Why, I'm not above admitting that I've been erroneous. It's a rare occasion, for sure, but not impossible."

She snorted.

"So, will you answer my question, why you are so amazing, Granger?" Surprised that he was able to pick up the thread of giving out a compliment, after he had offered a piece of his soul, and she had snarled when he had given her only a glimpse, she intuitively went for honesty again.

"Because we fit. You said that ages ago."

"I did, didn't I?" He smirked.

"Yes, you did. And you were right."

His smirk deepened. "Ah, thank Merlin. Something I was finally right about."

"Yes," Hermione confirmed frowning, at the same time looking up at the smooth face framed in light blond hair of the young man above her she was reluctantly falling in love with. "Yes, you are."

"Yes, you were," he corrected.

"No," she countered. "You are." It struck a chord, the enormity of what she had said, when it sank in, and he looked entirely stunned for a minute. And then, his light grey eyes widened and turned very dark and her lips were too occupied to say anymore.

Draco had to let go of her when she started giggling in exuberance and accidentally bit his lip. And even though he felt like giggling and laughing out loud himself, he cried out.

"Why, Granger, you bit my lip. I'll show you."

He struggled trying to hold her arms at the wrists while she was able to fight him off for a bit, giggling madly at his struggles. Giving up on capturing her arms, he used his leeway on top of her and moved a little lower and positioned his mouth over her throat.

"Surrender or I'll bite your throat." He chuckled against her skin.

Not even the memory of Greyback doing exactly the same thing with his victims could hold their delight over their situation in check. He listened to her squealing, when he bit her throat very gently, since she refused her surrender with a "Never. A Gryffindor rather dies than surrenders." and he panted his laughs on her soft skin in response to her delight. And while she squeezed him between her legs and pulled him on the side when she turned, trying to escape his wrestling arms and his bites, giggling all the time, he thought to himself: It aches when I see you laugh with me and when you scowl while claiming me. My entire body aches, but my chest in particular. It hurts but I don't want to miss this feeling. Tell me, Granger, what it is.

It's insane to want to hurt all over. It makes me short of breath, my heart races, I can feel my blood pounding in my ears, I'm dizzy, I feel hot and cold, sweaty and shivery and it worries me, but at the same time, it exhilarates me and it feels right. It's insane but I want this every day. So what if I'm a little masochistic. I want to come home to you and feel it, and warm myself in your eyes and hear you laugh and see you scowl at me and fight with you, so we can make up afterwards and have incredible sex, but most of all, I want to feel this. Tell me, Granger, tell me what this is.

.

_A/N: Almost there. : o )_

_And okay, I could have called this chapter "Trust" but it gives something more and "Clarity" fits better, I thought. Let me know what you think._

_For musical soundtrack, think "Upside down" by Jack Johnson, for the last scene. I know, it is Curious George music but it fits well and I like Jack's voice. And since Tom Felton is singing as well, this would be good for him. His music (from what I've seen) could use a little more oomph, as far as I'm concerned, a hip swing, more bite, contrast, drums, you know what I mean. I've been writing to Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know" feat. Kimbra recently but I could use some suggestions. _

_Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm working on the "Resolution" of it all and it's more difficult that I thought, as usual. I've got standards, you know. And so do you. I don't want to give you crap. I'm trying to squeeze all of my notes on the compow in one chapter and it's terrible. It's so not working and I need to find a better solution. Any writers out there, who can give me some tips on ending the story? I need a week off. Which is coming up (hehe)._

_Happy Easter, see you next weekend at the "Dinner"._


	33. Dinner

_A/N: Thanks for reviews go to: __**scv914**__ (;-))), __**Anon**__ (I try to update for the weekend, __if__ I have a chapter ready. If you get an account, you can put the story on story alert and get automatic emails when I update.), __**nikki98**__ (you and me both ;-))), __**Gryff-Slytherin**__, __**lizzmalfoy**__ (welcome, thanks for the motions you're going through while reading, ;-)), sorry about the foie gras-thingy, here in Switzerland and in France it's huge but it's only for special occasions anyway), __**maristelle, Artemisgodess**__ (thank you for the "Lemon-master" ;-), explicit repetition gets boring rather quickly, I agree. Thank you also for your input: I want to hold back its actual purpose as much as possible because it'll be huge ;-)). Luckily, I had an idea while driving on the German autobahn (wandering mind under adrenaline rush at 150 kmh did wonders for me, but do not imitate), I'll see how quickly I can put that in writing.), __**2dEVIL iN dISGUISE2**__ (Bring it on, baby. Harassment reviews I can deal with. And you gave me a new perspective of the full Monty: there are actually __four__ categories you can mark an author and a story in, plus a review ;-)). My ideas just pop into my head like a movie scene. Not necessarily in order of appearance in the story, so, I have to work them into the flow of the story and fill the "in-between".)_

_And thanks to the gazillion people who put me on their favourite list and on story alert, it's much appreciated. This time I've been really bombarded with emails. (Yaaay)._

_BUT:_

_Nobody gave me any music recommendations! I'm running dry here, people._

_Okay, this chapter, in comparison to my recently shorter chapters, is long but it'll be worth it. I found it quite diverting while writing it and in the end is the part, you've all been waiting for (big grin). Happy reading_

**.**

**Chapter 26: Dinner**

**.**

**Harry's POV:**

When Ginny had told me, how downcast Hermione had been with the separation from Malfoy, I had to sit down for a minute.

With what they had told us, their adjunction and their closeted work together, developing tracking spells, I shouldn't have been surprised that something had developed between them. And Malfoy had come a long way.

Just the fact that he had openly sided with us, however reluctant, even after Voldemort's downfall, was a sign that he did not want to continue the same way his father had led his life. He wasn't that different from me. With the misery I had grown up in, of course, I had to do something to change my life appropriately. And with the splendour he had grown up in, of course, he would have done what he could to continue his life the same way. Same difference really.

Dumbledore had said, all the difference lay in deciding whether to enter life's arena with your head held high or let yourself be dragged into it. Malfoy had decided. According to Hermione, he had decided long before Voldemort's downfall that he wanted nothing to do with it, really. He had grabbed Hermione's reaching hand to find a way out, within his means, to not be dragged into life's plays. I wanted to honour that.

It rankled a bit that it had to be Malfoy and not Ron. In my head, and for much of my childhood at school, Malfoy had been the enemy and Ron and Hermione were going to be it. I had found my perfect match with Ginny. Ginny was all I could ever wish for in a partner, my comfort, my motivation, my reason. She completed me perfectly. If Hermione found that with Malfoy, who was I to deny her that? Hermione stood by me, time and again, she had been there all the way, and without her, I couldn't have done it. Ron had certainly done his part, necessary parts, so I'd even say I couldn't have done without him either, but Hermione had been absolutely essential to our journey to defeat Voldemort. I wouldn't have found most of the clues without her knowledge.

So, after her talk with Hermione over lunch with Luna, after Malfoy had gotten engaged, Ginny had come to me and told me about Hermione's face when she had realized that she had made a mistake. That she had given up Malfoy without knowing what she did exactly. And how it had hit her when she realized it.

I went to Malfoy and begged him to do this one mission with us, to throw them together again. I'm not blind, you know. It had made sense what Ginny told me. I saw them at his engagement reception. I saw that he had missed shaking her hand but gone straight to her when she stood alone in the middle of the ballroom. I saw that he fumbled and almost dropped his glass when she talked to him. Malfoy was a seeker, like I. You don't drop things as a seeker. It's in your blood, whatever you have in your hand, stays in your hand. So, for Malfoy to drop something, a serious emotional shock must have happened. And in that situation it could only mean one thing: he also had made a fatal error, one that would change the rest of his life. With Ginny's information and a look at Hermione's misery, I had put the pieces together.

And Malfoy didn't need much convincing on that day. I felt vindicated when he basically jumped on the opportunity to come with us again. Oh, he put on a show, snarled something about his status and obligations and other rubbish. But we both knew that he wanted to come with us. With her.

I didn't understand what exactly it was between them until much later, and not until they themselves had conferred with Dumbledore and Snape and figured it out themselves. Luna had seen it. She'd said from the dream that Hermione had so crudely recounted she had known that there were grander forces at work. But with Luna, you never know exactly. I had seen some signs that they were right together, though. The air was smooth around them.

After her hospital stay, when he brought her home, they didn't surface for three days, secluded in Hermione's apartment. Whenever I wanted to contact her through the floo, I could hear some noises from other rooms, other than the living room, where her fireplace was; particular noises, moans and slapping flesh and giggling, male and female, sounds of extreme pleasure. A few times, the fireplace was blocked, so I took it that the living room was occupied.

When they did meet us again after three days for dinner (I had sent an owl), Hermione was giddy and nervous and blushed at every opportunity. Malfoy was his usual git-self, maybe a little more restrained, but even he glowed. They exuded energy to spare. Both of them ate as if they had starved themselves for the previous days. It was so obvious that something very physical was going on between them, it was almost disgusting. All the more astonishing was it that Malfoy wasn't disgusted, that he downright wanted to touch her. After all the disgust he had showed over the years. Perplexing.

They stayed close to each other as much as possible and Malfoy just couldn't take his hands of her; on her knee, in her back, brushing her hair of her shoulder, taking her hand under the table, just sitting next to her with their sides touching. He didn't kiss her in front of us, but the glances they exchanged were as good as. They had body contact at all times they stood together, so much so that even Lavender raised an eyebrow and confronted them. Even before dinner and once more in between courses, they vanished for fifteen minutes and came back glowing even more. Ginny beamed like a light bulb in happiness at seeing Hermione so thoroughly pleased and satisfied and we all broke up shortly after dinner because their contentment was contagious and we had some private celebrating to do.

.

**A few hours earlier:**

Draco looked up when Hermione came back into the living room, dressed for the dinner at Harry's place. She had put on her usual jeans and a jumper which effectively hid her entire figure. He got up and walked toward her.

"No." He turned her around to guide her back into her bedroom where her closet was.

"No?" she questioned confused.

"No, Granger. You will stop hiding behind your clothes. When you go out with me, even to a dinner with your friends, you will show what you have. You don't have to hide your body to raise the importance of your brain; we all know it's there. There must be something in your closet that will show your lovely figure more advantageously. And I am going to find it."

"Lovely figure? What planet are you living on? What's so lovely about my figure?"

He didn't let her get away_._ "I'll show you."

After half an hour, they had found a pair of wool trousers that she'd worn once for a special family occasion and a wrap-around top that was hidden way back in her closet because she found it too provocatively showing her breasts. Paired with the conservative trousers, though, it made a fine combination.

"But they are my friends," she groaned. "I don't need to show off for my friends."

"But you don't need to hide before them either," he answered sternly. "And you don't have to let them tell you who you are and what you have to do, either. You are the one with the brains. Use it."

Hermione looked down abashed. "I owe them so much. It's a small price to pay."

"You owe them nothing," he spat. "Do you really want to write up a balance sheet, who owes whom what? Because I'm sure that your balance would be more than black. If I asked Saint Potter, I just know that he would start gushing about how much he owes you. And you know that I'd never ask the weasel for his opinion."

"Yes, of course, Harry would say that because he's Harry. That's what Harry does, underestimating his own contribution and overestimating everybody else's. That's one reason why I owe him so much, he gives and gives and gives."

"So do you, Granger. But that's no reason for your focus to be as skewed as Potter's. People will have to give back to you at one point. You have to claim it or they'll exploit you crosswise."

When she looked in his light grey eyes at that moment, which were as piercing as usual but entirely free of malice, Hermione Granger realized that this man would actually be good for her. If a bit of his selfishness rubbed off on her, she would overall become a more balanced person. She wouldn't have to feel so stretched thinly all the time. But wasn't that completely Un-Gryffindorish to not self-sacrifice herself?

"Maybe, but it would be healthier," the little voice in her ear piped up. "You finished school, the sorting to houses stops at one point."

"I couldn't claim anything. I did what I did for myself as much as for everybody else," Hermione said, ignoring her little voice.

Draco snorted. "You'll learn. You are good at learning, aren't you? And if the pressure of "not-giving" becomes too high, you can live it out on me. You can give me anything you want." He grinned cheekily. "Now, you go and do whatever you've been doing recently to your face because it makes an immense difference and take your hair back, to show your lovely neck, glamour the love bites, and you'll blind them."

Hermione huffed. "I bet they won't even see the difference."

Draco looked smug. "We'll see."

And Hermione was wrong in her assumption. As soon as she entered Harry's drawing room with Draco at her side, a hush fell over the people present. If you had asked Hermione, she would have said, "But of course, that's because Malfoy came in with me and made everybody speechless." Until Ginny squealed: "Oooh, Hermione, you look great," and basically jumped into her girlfriend's arms.

Hugging Ginny, Hermione saw over her shoulder Lavender's face first falling, then darkening, when she looked past Hermione at the man accompanying her. Ron who naturally stood next to Lavender, his hand possessively on her waist, watched their entrance with fury barely held in check. Until Harry came in behind Draco and Hermione, and shook Draco's hand ostensively, welcoming him into his home.

"Malfoy, welcome. I see you've been taking good care of my friend. She looks splendid."

Draco Malfoy eyed Harry Potter like an insect that will sting you when you don't look, as if he couldn't decide whether to leave it alone or to smash it pre-emptively.

"I take no responsibility for her looks. You should thank nature or her parents for the way they made her," he replied coldly. "Oh, wait, that's right. Her parents are still in Australia because nobody bothered to bring them back for her." An ominous silence sunk over the room.

Hermione came out of her embrace with Ginny and turned to him.

"It's okay, Draco, I didn't mean for anybody else to bring them back for me," she said slightly shocked over his daring provocation as soon as he entered the room. So typical Malfoy behaviour. Their eyes connected and although Malfoy's eyes were cold and piercing as usual, Hermione had to have seen something in them, because she blushed.

"Not the point, Granger, is it?" he said quietly and took her chin between his thumb and fingers. Hermione reached up and took his hand in hers. They exchanged one look of understanding and then, she smiled warmly at her best friend and said: "Thank you, Harry." And with that, the ice was broken and conversation in the room took up again. Besides Ron and Lavender, Ginny and Harry, Luna, Neville, Dean, Seamus, George Weasley and Angelina Johnson and Percy Weasley were there.

Hermione felt how Draco put his cold Slytherin demeanour protectively around him and gripped his hand tighter. He returned her grip but remained quiet. Hermione dragged him with her to where Harry stood with his best mate and their respective partners.

Despite her earlier dark look, Lavender greeted them warmly. "Hermione, it is sooo good to see you back on your feet. You do look well rested." Draco snorted. Rest had been in short command over the last few days. Hermione smiled politely and thanked her.

Lavender put it up another notch. "Being so secluded you probably didn't hear the news yet, did you? Ron and I are getting married in the spring. Isn't it exciting?"

Ron looked anything but excited, looking back and forth between his former enemy and his former girlfriend. Ginny rolled her eyes, biting her lips, and Harry looked very concentrated in his butterbeer as if he was trying to calculate its ingredients.

In lack of an answer from her betrothed, Lavender couldn't shut up. She snuggled close to Ron's side and gushed: "Yes, we can't wait to close the bond and start a family."

Ginny looked sideways at Hermione to gauge her reaction. Was Hermione going to fall apart over the fact that her ex-boyfriend and best friend was going to have a family so soon?

Hermione could almost feel Draco roll his eyes next to her. He squeezed her hand again, then changed hands and moved a little behind her, putting a hand on the other side of her waist. The stroke of his magic on hers resembled a warm hand in the small of her back. 'I have your back,' it meant. 'Whatever you are going to say now, I'm with you. Give her hell.'

Hermione took a deep breath and with the encouragement from all sides, she said: "Well, congratulations, Lavender, Ron. Did you really think this through? Isn't it a little soon?"

Ginny breathed. Okay, that was okay. Thinking things through was what Hermione did, it was natural.

"Oh, you know, we are soo good together; it can't get better than this and so we thought, why wait?" Lavender put it on thick.

Draco squeezed her waist and gave her a stroke with his magic resembling a stab to the heart. 'What are you waiting for?' it meant. 'One clear stab and she's history.'

Hermione got the message and chuckled. "Yeah, well, I have to say, I'm glad that I waited before tying the knot. After all the hardship of this war, it wouldn't have done for me to jump into a marriage. And I have to admit that there are much bigger fish in the sea." She leaned back into Draco who stood up straight to give her the needed support. Ginny inhaled loudly but nobody paid any attention to her. All eyes were on Lavender and Hermione. Even the people, who did not stand right with them, were listening in.

Hermione gave Lavender the next stab. "I mean why take a herring if you can have a tuna? I know it's so much more expensive but tuna is much healthier. All this protein gives you stamina for days." She put the emphasis on the last three words. Ginny grasped Harry's collar and pulled him with her: "Harry, I think we need to check the dinner in the kitchen," she said through pressed lips. Harry hurried behind her and if one had looked one would have seen how his shoulders shook in suppressed laughter. However, with all eyes on the opposing pair of women, nobody noticed. They stopped just inside the door, not wanting to miss the rest of the exchange.

Draco hid his face behind Hermione's head of hair, so that his grin from ear to ear wouldn't show. She had taken it together and up but it was still wide enough to hide his face. It wasn't suitable for a Malfoy to grin openly in company. But he couldn't help it.

George came over and slapped Malfoy's shoulder. "I didn't know that Hermione was on a fish diet but it seems to do her a world of good. Fish is good for the brain, I hear."

Hermione jumped in before Draco could say anything. Her eyes fixed sternly on Lavender and Ron, she said: "Oh, fish, you find, is good for the whole body, not only the brain. It cleanses your whole system and gets rid of residuals and even strengthens your libido, something that needed serious improvement in my case."

(_A/N: I'm making this up. Don't take it at face value and start eating more fish. It would be very bad for the fish and I don't want to be responsible for that.)_

Dean and Seamus couldn't hold it back anymore. They broke out laughing. And with them, the others joined in. All except Ron, who had understood Hermione's insinuations, and looked furious, and Lavender, who was green with envy.

"Well," she hissed. "I'm glad that you recovered so well, Hermione, and that you are happy for us."

"Oh, yes," Hermione said warmly. "I am very happy for you."

Draco wrapped his arms around her from behind and even with George's hand on his shoulder, he couldn't hold back. The triumphant prickle from Hermione's powerful energy spread over to his and it tickled his diaphragm. He chuckled into the back of her head and when George joined him, he full out laughed as well. The others, startled at first to hear and see Draco Malfoy truly laugh, quickly joined in after their first shock.

But his laughter got stuck in his throat when he heard Hermione's last blow to Lavender. "Well, Lavender, at least your abundantly wagging mouth and tongue will come in handy. Or did Ron get over his unfortunate habit?"

Finally, Ron said something in this whole fiasco. "I'll have you know that Lavender does it excellently," he growled.

Hermione hissed with narrowed eyes. "I'm not surprised, considered that she has so much more experience than I had at the time."

Lavender paled and intervened. "Hermione, really, this is not the time and place …"

"I think it is not a matter of experience in her case but a matter of willingness to accommodate a partner," Ron interrupted her, speaking to Hermione.

"I could give that back, Ronald Weasley," Hermione hissed.

"Unfortunately, that was the only thing you could give back, considering your unresponsiveness," Ron accused.

"Yes, well, responsiveness is a result of proper stimulation. I have you know that I have no problems with responsiveness currently."

Draco Malfoy listened with utter attentiveness and with a growl lying in wait in his throat because the weasel attacked his woman. If required, he would have absolutely seconded Hermione's last statement. He could see, though, that she perfectly held her own. However, Ron Weasley was very close to becoming hurtful to Hermione and he wouldn't allow that.

"I would have to say the same thing, Hermione. Stimulation goes both ways," Ron delivered.

That was a low blow. Ginny gasped from the door and everybody else in the room held their collective breaths. Draco snarled in warning and although Ron looked at him, he didn't seem to perceive the utter threat Draco was issuing. Hermione recovered quickly.

"I tried to tell you what I needed but you wouldn't listen. You went on and on about what you needed. Teaching you anything has never been easy, Ronald Weasley, as any teacher would testify. There are men, however, who are not as pig headed as you when it comes to learning the preferences of their partner and who don't need extra stimulation. Where everything you do is for pleasure and not because it is necessary."

It had been a bit hurtful, Hermione's stab, and Ron was furious and blinded by it, and so he delivered another low blow. "You always had a big mouth, Hermione, rattling on about school; I simply expected more when you could put it to better use."

After a second of shock and a collective intake of breath in the room, Draco snarled: "Entirely out of line, weasel. You take that back or I'll teach you to watch your mouth. I warned you."

Ron in his fury took up the challenge without thinking clearly. Something he wasn't really known for anyway. "Oh, yeah, Malfoy? You and what army? Daddy's not here to file a complaint at the ministry on your behalf. In case you missed the memo, I'm the best mate of Harry Freaking Potter."

"I don't need my father, Weasel," Draco growled back, although Hermione had turned around and was trying to hold him back with her hands on his chest. "In case you forgot, I am magically connected to the other best mate of Harry Potter and that's makes me about four times stronger that you can ever manage." Ignoring the intake of breath from all the people who hadn't known this bit of information, he stormed on. "So, I advise you to watch your mouth. I don't want to rip you apart because Granger wouldn't like it, but if you say anything hurtful to her again, I'll find a way to make you regret it."

"What did I say, Malfoy?" Ron jeered. "What was so hurtful? That she couldn't use her mouth for anything but blabbering about school? George? What do you think?" he turned to his brother.

But George Weasley raised his hands in defeat. "You're on your own on this, Ron. I don't know exactly what happened between you and Hermione, and I don't really want to know. It sounded a lot like bedroom talk and that has no place here. Disgusting."

Ignoring Ron's face, shocked and furious from his brother's rebuke, Hermione managed to get Draco's attention at that moment and he looked down into her beseeching eyes. "Don't," they said. "It's not worth it. Let me explain." She pushed him a little toward the door and motioned with her head that she wanted him to leave the room with her. With an "Excuse us for a second" he let himself be pulled by Hermione into the hallway, where he confronted her furiously in a low voice: "What did you do?"

Leaning backward against a wall, Hermione lowered her head. "I didn't. That's where I balked. And that's why I said I don't have much experience with sucking. Because I didn't, well, maybe once. But I didn't really apply myself to it, like I did with you. Of course, it didn't help much with the intimacy that I didn't want to do it."

Draco rested his arms on her left and right, caging her in confrontation. However, Hermione didn't feel threatened by his posture, even though he looked at her like a fire-breathing dragon. She rather felt oddly protected by his arms around her.

Draco Malfoy, though, couldn't believe that he was discussing with Hermione Granger how well or not well she had sucked off her ex-boyfriend, aka the weasel, in comparison to himself. And in the hallway of Harry Effing Potter's house. With furious, blazing eyes he turned his head back over his shoulder, into Ron's direction behind the door. "Let me break his nose. He forced you to…"

Hermione quickly intervened and pulled his head back to her. "He didn't force me. He just made it clear that it was obligatory in foreplay and I couldn't do it. That's where the trouble started. I just couldn't respond well to the pressure of it and it went downhill from there. But don't tell me you never told a woman to do something?"

His eyes were still blazing, this time at her. "How can you say that? I never took a woman or girl against her will or forced her to do anything she didn't want. Never. I liked to order them around but it was part of the game. If it was rough or whatever, it was because we both wanted it that way. Everything I ever did was in mutual consent and for mutual enjoyment. Why do you think I was so upset that night in the classroom?"

Hermione was sceptic. "Didn't you say you required "that kind of service from every woman you are with"?"

He looked shocked for a moment, remembering that he had indeed said that, but his shock folded quickly. "You know why I said that. You know why I say things like that. You figured it out."

Hermione looked at him sadly. "Girls do many things because they think it is required from them, 'as part of the game', and because somebody 'says something like that'."

Draco's fury hadn't much subsided but he forced himself to speak calmly. "Yeah, well, it's not that most of the girls would have slept with me, if I had been just the boy next door and they were in love with me, isn't it? Most of them wanted to get me, because I am Draco Malfoy, the Malfoy heir, the bad boy, the dark one, in with the Dark Lord. And because of my reputation to make the girls have a good time as well. It's not that they slept with me out of the goodness of their hearts. You can hardly blame me for the fact that some girls might have done something just to please me, because you can be absolutely certain that they expected and got something in return."

"I didn't," Hermione mumbled, looking at the floor.

Draco heard her anyway. "No," he said, taking her face in one hand and lifting it up. "You didn't. And that's why I'm here with you, biting my tongue over Weasley's remarks, and not with the other girls."

His words rang in the ensuing silence. Looking at his cold burning eyes, she saw how much it cost him to be here with her. He held himself together in light of the perceived opposition against him and everything he stood for, but with utmost force. And he had just told Ron off for attacking her.

"You stood up for me."

He snorted. His breath blew into her face and she liked it. Recently, she liked almost everything coming from this man. Hermione felt hot and cold, realizing how close he stood to her and remembering what they had done over the last few days in her apartment. She wanted to be back there, with him, continuing what he was, what they were so good at, together. Looking at his mouth, she felt warmth coiling in her lower belly, remembering his kisses and his hands all over her body, on her skin, the same hands that he used now to support himself against the wall. What waste on the wall.

"Yeah, well. You were able to hold your own against him but I felt you cringing under his attack. I couldn't allow that. Understand that since you are here with me, it was like an affront to me that he attacked you. And as a Malfoy, I couldn't let that go. Purely selfish," he tried a little bit of old Malfoy bravado but it didn't quite ring true. This time, he looked down to the floor and not to her face.

He was protecting her. By Gryffindor and his best friend Slytherin, he stood up for her because he was protecting her. He had felt her discomfort and done something to make her better. Hermione's heart swelled and clogged up her throat. She swallowed, two, three times, because she had to say her piece. She had to let him know what it meant to her that he took her side, especially against her best friends. Still looking at his mouth and his lowered eyelids, she raised a hand and put her middle two fingers on his lips.

"I just wanted to show Lavender how wrong she is. She thinks because you are Draco Malfoy and because of your past, that she got the better man. But she is wrong." Hermione hadn't realized how angry Lavender's insinuation had made her until she said them out loud. She bit her lip in suppressed anger, turning angry thoughts over in her mind. Lavender was so wrong. In comparison with Ron's pig-headedness and misplaced grandiosity, Draco was so the better man. He at least realized that he had his faults. She, Hermione, was actually able to tell because she had had both men. And she knew which one she preferred. By far. No question.

When Draco's head came up abruptly after her words, the shock was clearly written in his face. He saw her angry face and her angry thoughts in her eyes and he correctly guessed that Hermione was actually angry on his behalf.

In that darkened hallway of Number 12 Grimmauld Place it hit Draco Malfoy that there was something within him that ran deep for Hermione Granger. Really deep. So deep in fact, that it tapped a string in him every time she turned to him, chiming through him, making him vibrate. A pleasant sort of vibration, one he knew he wouldn't ever be able to live without again. It was that addictive.

He gathered her up into his arms and pushed her more against the wall and kissed her good. When she whimpered, he let got for a second and asked quietly with a sparkle in his eyes: "Do you think that dinner will be served soon or do you think we have ten minutes, in which you could show me the upper remote rooms of this house?"

Hermione smiled and smoothed her thumb over his lips, which he kissed. "I'm sure we can take ten minutes. I don't need to be there when Ginny folds her brother into a tissue box."

He kissed her thumb again and let her go. "Lead the way."

.

**Harry's POV cont'd:**

Malfoy didn't socialize a lot that night. Most of the time, Hermione dragged him into a conversation or he stood on his own in the middle of the room or leaned against a wall somewhere, observing people. Only once or twice he had an actual conversation with other people, usually concerning Quidditch. Once he had another fallout with Seamus when Seamus criticised Hermione.

"Hermione, I'm surprised you didn't know. It's the newest invention in Charms. I thought you were always up to date in these things. Criminally negligent, it is," Seamus was teasing her.

Hermione blushed, because she had neglected her updating due to her work with Malfoy and her misery over their separation, and she opened her mouth but nothing came out. Before she could defend herself, Draco snarled next to her: "Finnegan, get your facts straight before you try to embarrass the woman who saved your arse in October. This newest invention in charms has turned out to be faulty in thorough tests, so before it will be released to the public, it will have to go through diligent improvements. It'll take a few more months before they will even consider again bringing it out."

Seamus opened and closed his mouth in surprise before he managed to ask: "How do you know?"

Malfoy sneered, but there was the hint of a smirk around his mouth. "The tests are being conducted in a lab that belongs to Malfoy Enterprises. As the acting CEWizI get regular updates."

( _A/N: Chief Executive Wizard, of course)_

.

**Harry's POV (cont'd): **And Ginny told me later about another exchange she'd had with Hermione.

Hermione stood talking with Ginny to the side, when Lavender joined them.

"You two are awfully touchy-feely, Hermione," she addressed Hermione snootily.

Hermione smiled a little and blushed. "Yeah, well…"

"If I were you, I would be careful where I get my carnal pleasures. You seem to forget who he is," she continued.

Ginny intervened. "Leave her alone, Lavender. Just because you are engaged to my brother, doesn't mean you can be all high and mighty over the rest of us. We just got out of a war, we want to live a little. We don't need to get all married right away."

"It has nothing to do with my engagement to Ron, Ginny, I'm just concerned for Hermione. I don't want to pick up her pieces when Malfoy got his fill and dumps her spectacularly. He's Malfoy, it's a wonder that he's still with her after a few days. He never stayed with anybody longer than a day and a night, even when he dated."

Hermione understood what Lavender was saying and defiance rallied in her. Lavender had no clue what Hermione had with Draco. She wasn't just a stupid bimbo for him, he respected her. He couldn't ever "dump her spectacularly". "Lavender, he is magically connected to me. Even if he wanted, he couldn't just turn around and leave. We work together." Well, he could, if he really, really wanted to. But I'm not going to tell you that, she thought to herself. And he doesn't want to.

"Ah," Lavender sniffed. "That explains it. The magic holds him to you."

Hermione exchanged one look of exasperation with Ginny. Ginny grinned slyly.

"Maybe the magic holds him close, but it didn't make him take her to the Manor as Hermione was just telling me," she said.

"So? And how was it, Hermione? The Manor still in old splendour? Lady Malfoy as haughty as she used to be?" Did you feel appropriately scared and out of place, was what she didn't ask out loud.

"Well," Hermione said slowly. "Mrs Malfoy was as cool as she always is, but after Draco made her greet me, we shared lunch and it was leisurely enough."

Crash, went the glass in Lavender's hand when she dropped it, splattering her butterbeer all over her robe. "He introduced you to his mother?" She paled.

Hermione shrugged. "Yeah, we came in, Andromeda Tonks was there, he introduced me to her first, and then to his mother."

"He introduced you to two family members?" Lavender's eyebrows hit the ceiling. Then she turned around, a piqued expression on her face. "Ah, well, good for you, Hermione. Excuse me, girls, I need to clean up my robe."

After Lavender had left in a hurry, Hermione turned to Ginny again.

"What's with her? Does it mean something, his introduction? I thought it was just to be polite."

Ginny shook her head, smirking. This facial expression was making its round. "No, Hermione. He's a pureblood of peerage, they do have a title, Lord Something. Not that that counts for anything in the wizarding world. But if he introduces you to his family, not only does it mean that he intends to keep you around, because he wouldn't go to that length if you were just a passing fling. But it gives you a certain protective magic against his family members and their circles as well. It marks you as an acquaintance of the peerage. Somewhat like the "connections" they used to have in the 18th century. And it was very clever that he introduced you to Andromeda first. She is an accepted family member, as indicated by the fact that she was sitting in the manor with his mother. And she's the older one, so she would have needed to be introduced first. It took away all objections his mother could have brought on. She couldn't refuse to greet you after he introduced you to her older sister, such are the rules. With two introductions to family members the magic of course is stronger. And in his own house. Clever."

Hermione objected. "But he didn't even know Andromeda was going to be there."

Ginny smirk widened. "Even better then, how quick on his feet he is. Keep him warm, Hermione. He's perfect for you."

Hermione looked up and across the room where Draco stood with George Weasley and Angelina Johnson discussing Quidditch. Angelina was just scuffing him on the chest, laughingly, recounting a manoeuvre she'd had to fly around him in one game they'd played together, when he had blocked her. When he felt Hermione's eyes on him, he shot her one of his piercing glances back and a small twitch around his mouth indicated the hint of a smile.

"Yes," Hermione breathed. "I'd say he is."

.

For a refill of butterbeer, Hermione went to the kitchen at one point. Several bottles in a basket levitated in front of her, she turned around only to find Ron standing right behind her. She startled and would have let the butterbeer crash to the floor in shock if Ron hadn't caught the handle in his hand and put it down gently.

"Blimey, Ron, you startled me. Since when do you sneak up so quietly?"

"Sorry, Hermione, I didn't mean to sneak up. I just wanted to talk to you."

She sighed. "What is it, Ron?"

He looked sheepishly at her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone off on you like I did. I suppose I deserved the dressing down from you."

Hermione furrowed her forehead. "That's right, you shouldn't have. But I accept your apology."

Ron drew his eyebrows together over something bothering him nonetheless. "But why did you have to have a go at Lavender? You and I stopped dating; you shouldn't hold a grudge against her."

"I'm not," Hermione countered.

"Like hell, you're not, Hermione. You openly embarrassed her with your remark about her wagging mouth."

Hermione said furiously: "Only after she tried to goad me with your engagement. I don't mind, Ron, I really don't. If she's good for you, then I wish you all the best. But I won't have her gloat in front of me that you are willing to marry her and not me. It distorts the truth. I saved Lavender's arse in the final battle, you know? She was about to be mauled by Greyback. I could have turned away after she stole my dedicated boyfriend in sixth year, minding my own business, which was helping Harry to finish Voldemort, but that's not me. I can't turn away from someone who needs help. But this is how you two repay me?"

Ron dug his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pulling up his shoulders to his ears with that gesture. It made him look even more sheepish. "I was just so angry that you came in with Malfoy. It should have been us two. Why Malfoy? After all he's been to us, after what was done to you in his house? Of all the guys you could have hooked up with after we broke up, you chose him?"

Hermione shrugged uncomfortably. How to explain the complexity of her connection to Malfoy without making it sound cheap or forced? "He's not as bad as he wanted us to see all these years. We just fit. On several levels. He challenges me in a way nobody else can. I just have to let the past be just that, past. He tries to do the same. The magic connecting us selected us to do something incredible, so it can't be wrong to be together. And we can't wait to explore it further. And, well…"

"And he is true to his reputation," Ron finished with a frown. Hermione blushed. Ron hesitated for a moment and shook his head before he stepped up to her, around the basket at her feet, and gave her a hug. "I'm sorry, I was such an arse and that it didn't work out with us. I just felt constantly under pressure with you. I always thought I'd have to live up to your expectations. And when will she ask the next time if I finished my homework, work task, whatever? It's so much easier with Lavender. But I shouldn't have been so brazen. It was rather difficult after our long friendship to bring it to a different level."

Hermione leaned her face against his shoulder. It did feel familiar but she missed the smell that she associated with a male shoulder she would want to cuddle into. "I want to be happy for you, but don't try to rub it in my face, alright?"

"Okay," Ron said.

"And try to be happy for me as well, okay? Because Draco is here to stay. Don't try to antagonize him every opportunity you get. He's already biting his tongue for me. Don't make it any harder on him."

Ron sighed. "If you say so." When Hermione sent him a look from his shoulder level that could have competed against his mother's looks, he gave her a thin smile. "I'll try. I really will."

Hermione nodded, smiling, said "Okay, then" and freed herself from his embrace. She levitated the basket back into the air and made it back to the Drawing room.

She didn't' notice the shadow that moved further back into the darkness and waited until Ron had passed as well before it came out of its hiding and moved back into the Drawing room as well to mingle.

.

**Harry's POV cont'd:**

Malfoy didn't seem to mind. He was perfectly comfortable, standing on his own, nursing a drink, talking to other people only occasionally.

I pulled Hermione over at one point and pushed her in a corner, so she couldn't escape. "Okay, Hermione, tell me."

She tried to escape nonetheless, not looking at me. "What's to tell, Harry?"

"Malfoy, Hermione? Honestly?"

She rolled her eyes but still didn't look at me. The best sign that she tried to hide something from me. You can't camp out in a tent for half a year, even if it has 40 square metres instead of the usual four, and not know each other deep under your skin. "What do you want me to say, Harry? Why not Malfoy?"

"Because he's Malfoy. He bullied you for six years. He's the mudblood hater incarnate."

"We were kids, Harry. That's what kids do, you know. Boys who tease little girls and all that."

"Hermione, you were tortured in his house."

"And he took my pain," she shot at me.

If she had hit me with a beater bat in the middle of my face, I couldn't have been more stunned. "What?"

She looked away from me. "Not all of it. It still hurt like hell. He couldn't take it all. But he took some of it."

I was entirely baffled. "He took your pain when you were tortured in his house?"

Now she looked at me. "Yes."

"How…why… he's Malfoy, for heaven's sake."

"So?"

"He's Malfoy," I squeaked again.

Her eyes rolled as if competing with the late Moody's magical eye. "Yes, Harry, I heard you the first time. Did it occur to you that I wouldn't fall in love with him if he still was the old whining git that we knew from school? That perhaps he developed from that, grew up, stopped the whining, grew a pair, which he actually uses quite nicely …"

To distract from my bafflement I blurted: "How did he do it?"

She shook her head. "We don't know exactly. I figure it's a part of the compow's power. We'll talk to Dumbledore's portrait day after tomorrow. Maybe he can help us find out more what it actually does."

"How could he hide it?"

"I think he just about bit his tongue bloody through to keep himself quiet. Didn't you see anything?"

"I was in the cellar when you were tortured. I only looked at him later, when I snatched up the wands. I mentally thanked him for not identifying us. I didn't know about your connection at that time, remember?" When she nodded, I added: "But he did look beat and I remember thinking, Lord, have mercy on him. Voldemort would not be pleased, I figured, when we escaped."

She lowered her head and looked to the floor. "Yes, well, so we all had our parcel to carry."

When she didn't say anything else, I asked what was foremost on my mind. "How can one fall in love with him?"

She sighed and looked past me. "When you get a look past his cold and snide exterior, you can see a lot of potential. It's as if you have to walk through a cold dark forest for a long time but from time to time you get a glimpse of the sun-filled meadow in the middle. I've seen it, it's there. You need a lot of faith to get there but once you're there it's so beautiful that I want to cry every time I see it."

"Eh," I said, "no, thank you. I've had quite enough forest to last me a lifetime."

She huffed. "Harry James Potter, don't you dare make fun of it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I grinned. "I just wanted to point out, if you want to track through a forest, you're on your own."

Her face fell. She took it the wrong way. "Hermione, I just meant if you want to dig deep in Malfoy's personality, you have to do that by yourself. Not that I wouldn't support you. If he's good for you, snatch him up, for crying out loud. God knows you deserve it."

When she remained quiet, I picked up one thing she had insinuated earlier. "So, his reputation is true, is it?"

She growled. "I don't want to know nothing about his reputation but he is quite capable to pleasure a woman nicely, yes. And have fun for himself at the same time."

I chuckled. "Oh, good, then. I don't need to hear more details, thank you. I don't need images of my friend shagging in my mind." It brought on pictures and memories nonetheless; pictures of a young man and woman deep in the forest, sheltering each other, lost to the world, entirely on their own, struggling for survival and to gain leads in a task against insurmountable odds. A man and a woman who were close to begin with and got closer while being the only two people they could rely on.

"Did you ever think if we could have …," I mumbled.

"You mean, out in the woods, when we were going out of our minds in frustration and desperation, bogged down by Voldemort's negativity from his horcrux, we could have had sex out of desperation for connection, for some control, for some relief?" She said with a glint in her eyes.

"If you want to put it like that," I snorted. How typical Hermione, to grasp the point of my thoughts exactly. We knew each other better than we knew ourselves, I figured. She shook her head, smirking, something she definitely picked up from Malfoy.

"It was better, we did not. We would have distorted what we have and we would have never forgiven ourselves for it."

I sighed. "You're right, as always." She nodded.

"So, you're in love with him, hm?" I poked again.

She moved her gaze away again. Ah, Hermione, don't give me that. I already know, I see you. You don't need to hide it. "Getting there," she mumbled.

I startled her when I pulled her in a bear hug. "Take what you can, Hermione, you deserve it." After a second of shock, she embraced me back.

"Really, Harry, you mean it?" she sniffed in my collar.

"Absolutely. You know I wouldn't say it, if I didn't mean it."

She sniffed again. "Thank you, Harry. For everything."

"Thank you, Hermione. Did I ever thank you properly? Well, here goes: I couldn't have done it without you."

"Well, well, Potter, bothering my woman, I see?"

We both shot up from our embrace. I startled because Malfoy had sneaked up in typical Slytherin fashion, inaudible until he was right behind me. Hermione smiled over my shoulder at the man behind us.

"Ah, you even made her cry. Unbelievable, Potter, I leave you alone with her for five minutes and she comes back crying. How does the Weaselette stand you? Do I need to defend your honour, Granger, challenge him to a duel? You just need to stay close to me and I figure I can even take on Saint Potter here."

Hermione grinned at him and freed herself from my arms. "Harry wouldn't be able to compete strength wise but he's still fast. The compow doesn't give you quicker reflexes. So, no, I'd rather take you home in one piece. For what I have in mind for later, I'll need certain parts of you still attached and you need to be able to move properly. I'd rather Harry didn't take you apart." A little appalled over the highly charged banter, I turned around to face him and looked right in his smirking face.

"Ah, too bad. It would have made my day, taking on Potter for my woman. Well, I'm not giving up hope. One day, I'll be able to replace Potter." He gave me a look that was a clear warning. I understood zip. Why would he want to replace me? As what? What was he talking about? And why was Hermione beaming from ear to ear?

I could feel the draw in the air between the two, like they were connected at the navel, siphoning each other inevitably in the partner's direction.

Hermione skipped up to him and put her lips over his as if she was going to kiss him. But she stopped short about five millimetres before impact. He looked right in her eyes, like a dragon watching its eggs: highly alert, in anticipation of danger ready to jump, ready to rip everything apart that would endanger its property. I would have been afraid if something looked at me that way but Hermione breathed something in his face that sounded like "You already have", smirked, and slid past him. I could see just the hint of an answering smirk lingering in his face before he became aware of me watching him and relaxed his face into a frown.

"What did she say?" I challenged him.

"None of your business."

I fixed my gaze on him and indicated with a jerk of the head to follow me out on the back porch. In a bubble of a warming charm, we stood and looked out into the cold winter night.

"So," I finally said.

He snorted. "Yes, Potter?"

I crossed my hands in my back. I felt awkward. "You and Hermione."

He looked at me sideways with raised eyebrows. "What about it, Potter?"

He was a tad taller than me, so I had to look up, which bothered me a bit. I cleared my throat and said: "I would give you the "If-you-ever-hurt-my-friend-she-is-like-a-sister-to-me" speech, but I have to say, in case you ever do, I'd rather pity you because Hermione is quite capable of fighting for her own honour."

He sneered. "I am quite aware of that, Potter. As you know, I share immense magic with her. That would be one hell of a magical firework should we ever fight against each other. Which I don't intent to do. I like my hide unblemished." He sent me a very dark look and leaned against one post of the back porch roof, away from me. I understood. I was sorry that I had given him the scar from the "Sectum Sempra". But I had already apologized for it and I knew he wouldn't appreciate snivelling. I took a step sideways to the other post and leaned against it. He broke the silence between us.

Staring out into the backyard, he spoke: "I have to say, Potter, you should keep your best mate better in check and the antics of his woman."

"His fiancée," I corrected.

He snorted once more. "Whatever. Hermione was quite capable to stand up for herself tonight but if I ever hear the weasel breathe another word against her again, I'll split him in half. There won't be any traces. But if you find his earthly mangled remains after another attack on Hermione, you'll know it was me who did it. Or had it done."

I nodded. "Fair enough." He nodded back to me and then turned and walked back in. I had to give it to him: he looked like an agile wild cat when he walked. I could see that the girls would like it. And he had stood up for Hermione. I almost couldn't believe that the same man, who had called her mudblood in the most hurtful way during our childhood, was now in love with her. Because judged by the smouldering glances I had observed them sending each other across the room all night and the constant touching, their short disappearances and the bubble of content around them, I was fairly certain that he was.

.

**Draco's POV:**

When we got back to her apartment that night, I pushed her against the wall in her foyer as soon as our feet hit the ground from the apparition. Not quite urgently, but definitely in need to snog her senseless. I had had to survive almost an entire evening without a decent snog. Well, with two exceptions. But having survived an outing in the company of her friends, being grilled by Potter with regards to my "intentions" toward Hermione and having watched the weasel be the weasel, this time with an equally stupid "fiancée", I felt I deserved a reward.

"Do you need a detour to the bathroom or can I start undressing you right here?" I whispered against her mouth when we had to take a breathing break.

She shook her head. "How about we take it to the bedroom first? I don't think hanging off my wardrobe is very romantic."

Romantic. Nothing about our togetherness had been romantic. We hadn't started out as two people who discovered their attraction and slowly gotten closer. We had loathed each other because of our alignments to opposite sides of a stupid war. We had collided in moments of need and connected, slowly realizing in the process that although different, we were equal and that in fact, given the chance, we fit quite well together.

And now I was addicted to her. I couldn't even survive one dinner without a break. I needed to feel her skin and the tingling when I touched her and smell her scent directly off her skin. I was addicted to the scent of her roses mixed with the scent of our love making. I wanted, I needed the calmness when we had exhausted and satisfied ourselves physically and lay in each other's arms. I had craved this feeling for a long time, the satisfied exhaustion after shagging, the peace of mind; only with Granger it was so much bigger. I felt that I'd never even gotten close to the actual feeling before experiencing it with her. I had satisfied myself with a crutch for years without knowing the real thing; I had needed quantity over quality because there was no better quality to be had. Now that I knew this ultimate peacefulness with her, I wouldn't be able to turn away from it. There would be nothing that could compare with this feeling for years to come, I was sure of it.

Kissing deeply, I guided her over to her bedroom. I knew the lay-out of her apartment quite well by now, having negotiated its nooks and corners several times over the last few days. When we were inside, she lit several candles all over the room with a swish of her wand and doused the room in a peaceful atmosphere. We kicked our shoes off but clambered onto the bed in our full clothing.

Kneeling across from each other in the middle of her bed, I pulled her clothes off without any urgency. On the contrary, the slower I peeled layer by layer off of her, the more I could savour what lay beneath, her undergarments (mint green was a good colour for her, I was pleased to find, even though it wasn't my favourite colour), her smooth golden skin, so different from my white and rougher hide. After every removed layer, I kissed her hungrily, thirsting for her taste, for the feeling of the smoothness of her lips, drinking her in. She let me and returned it in kind and I could see in her eyes that she approved of what I was doing and that she enjoyed my touch.

When we were undressed, I pulled her on my lap. Still kneeling, I gripped her hips and lowered her over my upstanding shaft. I had no compunction doing that: I knew she was ready. Sensitized as I was to her from repeated shagging in a short amount of time, I smelled, I sensed her readiness. She shuddered and flushed when she felt the welcome insertion but held my gaze, which was a first: usually Hermione was too abashed to be so openly sexual. I figured that the frequent exceptional sex with me made her more daring and I quite liked her confidence. Elevated over my lap, for once she had to look down on me and I had her perfect pair pushing against my collarbones. Her arms around my shoulders caged my head in and brought her scent closer to me. And so we stayed, connected and content, caught in the moment.

The better man. She'd said I was the better man. Not that I didn't know that compared with the weasel, of course, I was the "better man". But for her to say it, for Hermione Granger to prefer my company over Ron Weasley's was inconceivable. It expanded in my chest, this thought.

I started to move slowly, pushing upward. Hermione pushed her hips forward, deeper into my loins for deeper penetration, and held herself with her hands behind my neck and head, her fingers inserted into my hair.

It was warm in her bedroom and with the excitement and the additional heat from the candles it was no wonder that we were soon covered in perspiration, making our bodies slick and slippery. My hands slipped on her hips several times but all it did was dropping her more forcefully on my shaft. Every time that happened, she moaned in delight. I felt tempted to do it intentionally.

The slow movement in flickering candle light, our responding pants, and the smacking sounds of our union created calmness in the warm room that was almost hypnotic. Captivated, staring into each other's eyes, feeling our slick skin sliding against each other, enjoying the pleasures of our connection I could have done this forever and it would have been too short. In equal balance, eternally moving with each other, I didn't need any change. I was perfectly comfortable with her on my lap, sheathed over my prick, her arms around me, engrossed in her warm gaze, lost in the reverie of our connection.

But then Hermione leaned back and put her hands behind her on my knees for support. She leaned forward one more time to kiss my lips firmly and with a determined look straight at me, she whispered: "Take me," against my lips, and then let her head sink back and closed her eyes. As soon as she did that, her bedroom was illuminated in a reddish glow. I had to tighten my hold around her back, so she wouldn't slip out of my arms. I had to lean back a little for counterbalance as well and even though it pushed my hips forward and gave me another genial centimetre deeper into her, it felt wrong to lean away from her.

But it felt right to get into her. Deep and deeper. The deeper I got in, the better it felt; I'd noticed that long before. As if I was supposed to root in her. That thought struck a chord.

Root.

To root her.

To be a root for her.

I intruded into her personal space or her integrity when I attacked, barked at or impaled her and I had always understood it to be something aggressive and her receiving me as something indulgent, passive, martyred, even though it had felt so right. I had wondered many times why she accepted me thus without hesitation.

But with sudden clarity the thought stood out in my mind: maybe, just maybe, she welcomed my intrusion because it did something good for her? Perhaps I anchored her? Like a tree trunk to its canopy of leafs? She the canopy taking in the raw energy of the light and the air, taking it all in and transforming it, I the anchor to ground her, to connect her flighty magic to the earth, to channel, to focus her transformed energy?

I had to reach up into her energy to be able to do that, to hold her tight. I had to intrude into her to grip her, to be able to anchor her to me and through me to the ground. I had to get in to fasten her. But perhaps she welcomed my intrusion, my anchor as much as I enjoyed her reception? Perhaps she didn't just endure my penetrating personality but needed it to channel her abundant energy?

And together we created, like a tree creates life by transforming energy, anchored to the soil, pulling from above and below. But it needed both, a root and trunk as well as the leafs.

The dream had said we were supposed to create a shield. Hermione had caught that nuance. Working the compow with both our magical fields, we were able to transform energy, magical energy. A spell breaking was just another form of transformation. Hermione had been right. There was more to it. It wasn't just about spell breaking; that was only a necessary part. We were supposed to create something. What it was, I didn't know. But we would find out, soon.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when Hermione did the little hip roll that jolted my prick so nicely. It made me bump against the end of her channel and ignited me entirely with a gasp. Little electrical shocks surged through me like licks of fire and made me short of breath.

Her command and surrender and her wallowing magic dousing us in red light tapped my magic as nothing else could. I was pulled, pulled by my own charge racing toward hers, pulled to dive into her and be swallowed like we had done the first time in the adjunction. Again on impact, my blue magical energy became visible. Only this time it remained. When we had adjuncted, the whole cloud of magical energy had turned purple when the compow had been created, but this time, I saw my blue inserting into her red. It remained blue. It didn't stay like a blue pillar of energy visible within the red either, as would be expected, two separate entities of magic overlaying, but it merged. It spread out like tree sap in the branches into the crown of a tree and immersed in the red. At this point, it shimmered purple again, blue mingled with red, the compow interweaving into the mix. Only on closer sight, I could still see my blue magical energy glimmering like branches in the canopy of red. They were still separate like two magical fields but they combined as much as two separate entities could. And the compow looked particularly happy, weaving in and out of our combined magical energies, like a knife through water.

Like my magic immersing into hers, I was pulled to unite with her. Her perfect breasts up, right for my delighted view, reminded me that there were earthly pleasures that we were so apt at together. She did the hip roll again, and the shock shooting through my prick this time kicked me into action. Still holding her around her back, so she wouldn't fall backward of my lap, breaking my appendix in the process, which would be such a shame, I bent forward and latched onto one breast and licked and suckled it to attention to her mewls of pleasure, then doing the same on the other side, while trusting into her. She moved her hips in the same rhythm and reaching the end on every move into each other, it didn't take us long to shudder in anticipation of impending explosions. Granger leaned further and further back until I couldn't hold her up anymore. She didn't seem to mind. She rested her upper body on the back of her head on the mattress and writhed, clenching her inner muscles, her stomach and her legs in excitement and arched backward in expectation of the big one.

"Draco," she moaned. "Draco, come into me. Take me, take me up, up, up."

I only obliged too willingly. Since I didn't have to hold her up with all my strength anymore, I used my freed stomach muscles to move my prick into her.

Seeing her writhe and shiver, clenching muscles in waves to capture the one fulfilling relief, brought me to my own brink quickly, when I was held back by a single moment of doubt: why would this smarter than smart young woman give herself to me, the bully of her childhood, who had repulsed and degraded her, whose family had captured and tortured her? As it is with these unpleasant thoughts, they come in the most inopportune moments, making you doubt your own sanity. Why would your own brain spoil its own excitement with unnecessary doubts? I didn't know but I was glad it was a short lived moment, because in the next moment her fingernails dug in my forearms when she was overcome by another wave of clenching muscles, trying to capture the one crest that would take her over. She snarled in frustration when she didn't get it. I chuckled.

"Let go, Granger. If you want it, you have to let go, as hard as it is sometimes. Especially for you." I chuckled again. To simply let go would have to be incredibly hard for her.

"I am," she whined, frustrated. Even her magic bristled in frustration. "It's just so close and I ...can't... get ... it."

She wasn't. She couldn't let go. She was like a bulldog, once she got something in her head, she held on to it. I loved that about her. Her stubbornness not to give up on me was after all responsible for my being here with her and not burning in hell or dead at Voldemort's hands.

But sometimes it was necessary to give your obstinacy up. On her next shuddering, I bent forward again and taking her breast in my mouth, I bit down on her nipple. It wasn't hard, it wouldn't leave a bite mark. But it wasn't gentle either. Just hard enough to jostle her.

She yelped and gasped and froze in shock. I even felt her magic freeze in shock. It hovered around mine, unmoving. I used her shock to pick up speed and slam into her to my own finishing line. I would make it up to her should I come before her. Because it was fun to do, I bit her again, this time on the other side. The second time she was better prepared, and she inhaled against the tiny pain over her sensitive nipple. I felt the electrical current off the little pain impulse in the fluttering of her legs and inner muscles. It jolted her magical field and it swelled with her inhalation, squeezing mine, overtaking mine. She shuddered one more time and I felt the vibration on my prick as well as my magic, shaking both.

And then she exploded in a big one that I've rarely seen in women. Her bum in my loins, her back over my thighs declining down to the mattress, it literally lifted her off me when she came, arching backward, so that her head rested on its crown instead of the back and her shoulders came up off the mattress, her hands pressing on and gripping my forearms, she would surely leave marks. She shook as if she was in a fit with tortured sounds. What shook me, though, wasn't only her mother of all orgasms but how her magic came onto me. Opposite of the way she usually swallowed me, her magic flooded mine, as if every magical particle wanted to connect separately with mine, truly combining what was each our own. It filled me up and I was flooded with her, her scent, her voice, her acceptance, her magic, the pleasures her body gave me, the enraptures of our exchanges, memories of seeing her scowling at me in school, writhing in pain at the hands of my aunt, laughing with me and peacefully enjoying what I gave her. It was too much. I choked, I tried to breathe, I clambered for air. Lacking essential oxygen, I still exploded because I had been just there, on the brink.

And being so filled to the brim with her, feeling many, many strings inside of me swing unison with her vibrations, I knew I didn't want it any other way. I wanted to feel her in every fibre of me.

Hermione.

Earthly circumstances be damned. Upbringing, education, birth right, magic, what the fuck?

I wanted this woman to connect with me. This had to be it.

It filled me up over my head, it choked me, drowned me and made my heart burst at the seams. It exploded in my chest, it became too big, it pushed my lungs out and I still couldn't breathe.

It was insanely intense and no person in his right mind would have suffered it without considering a healer's advice, but I didn't want to have it any different. My head felt dizzy and while I exploded with a yell, my head thrown back, I felt my lips try out some words that I'd never spoken before.

While bursting into her womb, whimpering, I held her so close in my arms, my muscles contracting to their limits, crushing her so that I was almost afraid I would break her in half and that her panting was a result of painful resistance.

But I couldn't let go. I needed her close. With her back bent backwards, I nuzzled my face directly between her breasts. And while releasing spurt after spurt, pumping deeper and deeper, I felt the words flow out of me, my lips forming them without sound at first, having no air, until I connected in my brain what I was saying, and until I felt them coming out safely and surely. It wouldn't do for a Malfoy to stutter such important words after all. With my brain back in control, I inhaled and only then was I able to pick up volume, until I heard myself whisper: "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, …" directly into her skin.

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you …" I pleaded, like an instant prayer, into her skin, into her body, into her. It had to be true. There could be no bigger emotions than this one flooding me in that moment, making me burst.

Hermione froze when she felt rather than heard my words against her chest. Bent over backwards, her stomach muscles stretched to their limits, her head resting on its crown on the rumpled bed sheets, I felt her stiffen under my grip but it didn't stop me. I was ready to shout it from the roof tops and I wouldn't let anything stop me.

"I love you, I love you, I love you …." I kept up my constant stream of confession.

I didn't realize until she pushed me back into a sitting position that the stiffening of her muscles had meant that she pulled herself up.

I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see how she looked at me. I wanted to cling to this newly discovered, all encompassing, fulfilling emotion a little while longer before reality caught up, before somebody took it away, like all good things in my life were taken away. I didn't know what she was doing until she pressed her lips against mine, her breasts against my chest, and she thus stopped my string of words. Pushing me backwards, toppling me over, she kissed me hungrily as if she wanted to devour me for dinner. Needless to say, this led to a second round and a few more the same night.

She didn't say it back that night. It wasn't necessary. I was exhilarated to the stars and back, filled by this feeling of being eternally connected to her.

This was love.

This addictive feeling of wanting the woman who is constantly on your mind every minute of every day with you was what love was all about.

This insanely sick feeling of bursting at the seams, of clenching heart and shortness of breath and dizziness when you see her or think about her, something no sane person would consider normal, was love. I loved her, there was no other plausible explanation.

I, Draco Malfoy, was in love.

I loved Hermione Granger.

Holy Fuck.

.

.

.

_A/N: There, will that do? _


	34. Love

_A/N: First mention goes to Phnxgrl, for a review, yay. And I adore Adele to death. And the next to maristelle: I like Jason Mraz, but I'd go with "I'm yours". In my mind, Draco is not the "I'm not giving up" guy, that's Hermione. He's more the fatalistic, Free Falling guy (John Mayer's song works, too.)_

_Looking through your suggestions, I discovered Gossip "Perfect world", that works for me for writing. Or "Heavy Cross"._

_Further thanks for reviews go to Gryff-Slytherin, nikki98, Mischief's Mistress, scv914 (thank you (sniff). The problem with original fiction is that you have to develop so much more and you need a good idea, whereas with these beloved characters you just take them and run. But I'll take this as a dry run. Maybe I can think of something original. ;-)), Laugh-Dream-Love and bcrm4ever (thank you, thank you (praised writer curtsies)._

_I forgot: for the last chapter (which I dedicate to 86, a very faithful reviewer, because she wanted Ron to get his come-uppance) the song is Coldplay, "Princess of China", Hermione's song to Ron. (cool song, I like it)_

_This chapter I dedicate to nikki98, scv914, and articcat621, very faithful reviewers from very early on. Also to Forbidden1991, VampireQueenBrittany and LexLina. Thank you all, you guys, you are helping me over the bumps in the road of writing._

_Aaaaaaaaand, action:_

**.**

**Chapter 27: Love**

** .**

**Hermione's POV:**

When I woke up the morning of the last day in the year 1998, I found myself incredibly warm and entangled in muscular male arms and legs. My head rested on a biceps and my nose was very close to an armpit, whose clearly male smell I didn't mind at all, even before I opened my eyes. There was a hand on my bottom behind me and the hand of the biceps I was resting on held my hair behind my head. There was also a strong leg between my thighs, pulled very close to my centre and resting so heavy on my lower leg that it had fallen asleep and tingled. I tried to move it but it was difficult because the male arms and leg had caged me in. The man belonging to the male limps surrounding me, grunted sleepily when I tried to wriggle back a bit, and pulled me even closer to his chest.

Squinting through my heavy eyelids, I looked at a strong jaw and red lips because last night's kissing would have even taxed male lips to the point of tearing.

I felt sticky and yucky all over and yearned for a cleansing shower, but on the other hand, this stickiness was testimony to last night's activities and I wanted to savour it a little longer.

My unusually cloudy mind went slowly over last night and made me shiver and my stomach clench in remembrance.

He'd said he loved me. Many, many times, almost obsessively, until I shut him up. It had felt so right to kiss the living daylight out if him. He had swept me away. Not because he had wooed me romantically, with flowers and chocolates and promises to be my prince in his castle, something I would have found incredibly silly. I am a rational kind of girl and the thought of being swept up on a white horse by Prince Charming, riding into the sunset, gives me the willies. No, he had done something else.

Harry knew me inside out, but there had never been a spark to carry it further than friendship. He was my best friend, period.

Ron, well, was Ron. I thought I loved him as a man, other than a best friend. I was wrong. Not for the first time, nor the last.

Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, connected with me like nobody else. I wanted to take him in and make him a part of me and never let him go again. I wanted to own him, so that he would never be able to leave. Draco the man, not the Malfoy heir. I couldn't care less about his family ties. Well, I did care, but not in a good way. I wanted to separate him from the additional baggage of his upbringing and the rubbish of malicious influences and keep him just to myself. I wanted to lock him in my apartment for years to come and just do what we'd been doing all along for the last few days (much to the chagrin of a certain soft tissue because it was swollen and sensitive after days and days of shagging. It didn't deter me, though. The bliss fully made up for it). And since limited freedom of any living being was such a foreign concept to me, I was rather startled at my own reaction to his love confession. Therefore, all I could do was kissing as if I wanted to smother him.

It hadn't been my first love confession I ever heard. Ron had said it, too; even though he didn't say it after I had said it and with a lot less conviction. I remember thinking how lucky Ginny was, because I was absolutely certain that Harry would say it with all the conviction he had in him. And I had felt a little disappointed that the man in my life had spoilt that particular romantic moment.

I knew it was hard for men to say it. Heck, it was hard for me to say it. But the way Draco had said "I love you" had resembled him finding the key to something he had been searching for a long time and when he finally found it, he couldn't wait to tell the world. As if he couldn't believe it himself until he actually felt it. But when he felt it, he had to embrace it and me with it. It had been so encompassing, I'd felt my own chest exploding. And even though I didn't say it back last night, it had felt completely right. It couldn't be any different.

Once again it shot through my head why on earth it should feel so right with a man who by all rights should be so wrong. Especially when it had felt so wrong with a man who should be absolutely right for me, like Ron Weasley. But I told myself to be quiet.

"I told you," an infamous little voice niggled in my head.

"Will you shut up, for crying out loud? I'm so close to knocking myself out just to shut you up," I snarled back. Draco's pejorative style was rubbing off on me.

"Just because you know I'm right," it purred back. I could basically hear its eyebrows wiggling.

"Of course, you are right, that's why you are so annoying. I hate it when somebody else is right. Draco is the only exception."

"But I'm not anybody else. I'm you, basically. Well, maybe your better half." I could hear it smirking. "Good to know that you are starting to give Draco some worth."

"Just shut up, will you? I already know that he's good for me."

We had done it several more times, last night: upward and downward, backward and forward, up and under, left and right, top and bottom, in and out, centre and sideways, changing positions several times in one go. We just couldn't get enough of it, as if we had taken an energizing potion.

We had taken another hurdle of confronting my friends as a couple and it had gone fairly well. The fact that we couldn't stop touching each other and had to take shagging breaks, even in public, was a bit disturbing, but incredibly erotic at the same time. It had spilled over into our private bedroom that night and every time we had satisfied ourselves, we had only rested five minutes at the most and then either he or I had started again by kissing the other frantically as if we wanted to take bites out of each other and devour us whole. But no matter how we had done it, it came down to one point: it fit. No matter how we had come together, it fit.

Well, biting we had done. He had bit me. Started with his jostling bite to my breast, he had bit me all over my body. I was sure when I ever got myself out of his warm embrace and made it to the bathroom my reflection in the mirror would show, that I was covered in love bites and marks from his teeth. Nothing that had hurt particularly and that I couldn't cover with a decent glamour charm, but the fact that I had let him bite me, numerous times, in numerous parts of my body and had enjoyed it immensely and bit back just as feverishly, stunned me. He was equally covered in bites as I was. Every time I had bitten him, he had moaned his delight to the heavens, which in turn had catapulted me higher.

Of course, we hadn't only bitten each other. He had taken my request seriously and taken me six ways to Sunday. I had shivered and almost exploded every time he had bent to my ear and whispered hoarsely: "I want you."

He had yelled my name every time he came, whether in me or out, followed by panting exclamations of wanting or loving me. We had kissed as if we had wanted to suck each other in. Draco, in particular, had kissed me as if he wanted to drink me in. And not only my lips; he had kissed and sucked and slurped on every body part he could get a hold of, as if he wanted to experience every atom of me with his tongue. I felt cat-washed in the end.

All of it had been titillating, but of course, it had included the parts that counted most. When he had sucked on my knob and my body had reared up and I had screamed at him to just bloody make me come and to stop tantalizing me, he had laughed gleefully. I had only seen the glittering in his eyes after he had made me come screaming his name, slipped in and worked me up to a second climax, where I shattered in a million pieces and felt like I was floating on a cloud, grabbling for my sanity. Grinning decidedly proud, he gave me five full minutes to recover after that, sensually kissing and fondling my exhausted body.

I must have come six or seven times that night. Maybe more. I lost count when I confused the plateaus and frenzied, reaching shudders in between with actual climaxes. What made it even more extraordinary, was our magic mixing in.

We had mingled our respective magical fields with each other before, sliding them over each other's, enjoying the electrifying effect like caresses under water where we moved like we were weightless. I had intuitively taken Draco's field in when we had adjuncted and it had seemed to be my preferred mode: I was able to take in what came my way and work or disarm it. I took it all in, the same way I devoured knowledge from books, sucking it up like a dried sponge, preserving, conserving, serving, expanding with the collection of information, until the supply wasn't enough anymore and I had to start all over again and take more in. It was my familiar mode but at times it was insufficient.

This time, even before the love confession, Draco's magic connecting with mine had fastened me, connected with every element of mine, and I had felt pushed to reverse my direction. I had flooded him instead of ingesting. It had been so liberating, genial, exhilarating. I loved him if just for that. He had freed my stuck-up mode of intake and it was so energizing and the effect lasted all night, as indicated by the fact that I couldn't let off.

We went on forever, until he pleaded against my sternum, panting after another explosion against my heated skin, still inserted in me: "Granger, make me stop."

I giggled, panting in exhilaration from my own climax: "I don't want you to stop."

He groaned, nestling deeper in my depth, and between my breasts: "We are going to pass out if we don't stop."

I laughed in reply, pulling my inner muscles so he wouldn't accidentally slip out: "Let's pass out then. And then we'll stop."

He smirked and huffed at the same time, thrusting in because he felt my pulling, coming up to my chin, which he nipped: "You are insane, a shag-craved monster."

"Here's to insanity, then," I chuckled and pulled him to me for another snogging round.

We did pass out eventually. He came one more time and I thought I could feel it squirt out of me instead of in because all this spunk had to go somewhere. Basic rules of physics. And then he crash-collapsed onto me and moved no more. I managed just about to let him slide off to the side so I wouldn't have to carry his full weight, and then passed out myself, our bodies still attached.

We must have moved during the night, although our positioning in the morning didn't much differ from the time when we passed out, but his prick had removed itself from my depth. All the goo was still there, though, and it was that what made me feel so yucky.

While I was still contemplating whether it was worth the trouble of moving, if I should kiss his reddened lips again as they hovered tantalizingly over me or succumb to my little rested body and go back to sleep, Draco stirred.

"Ugh," he said.

I couldn't suppress a giggle. "Ugh" just about summed it up.

"Granger, what did you do to me?" he said, licking his parched lips, without opening his eyes.

I giggled again. "How did you know it was me?" I asked jestingly.

His eyes slowly fluttered open. "I'm full of you. There is nobody else who could have been here."

"Ah, see, and I thought I was full of you, literally," I tried to do a blue joke.

He snorted. "Granger, do me a favour and don't try to be funny. It hurts my head."

Skipping over the "Good morning, honey, did you sleep well?" he pulled me against him and gave me a snog that dizzied my head from lack of oxygen. After letting go, I inhaled deeply, savouring his scent that I liked so much. Even in the morning, he still smelled like spicy lemon, mixed with maleness. And, well, I didn't mind the residue of other bodily smells, of course.

He rolled on top of me and I felt his prick nudge against my pubis teasingly.

"Any chance I could get in there again?" he whispered hoarsely against my lips.

I opened my legs and relished the feeling of his prick's head slipping lower, resting closer to the entrance. "Feel free," I smirked. "It's still well lubricated."

He smirked back. "You do realize that you will never be able to work properly, do you?"

I was taken aback. "And why is that?"

Slipping in, distracting me with the feeling of him filling me up, a feeling I was certain I would never tire off, he replied: "Well, you'll either have to be available all day to my shagging needs and since we shag so well, I'll have a lot of needs. Or I will have to get my fill when you come home from work and since that could take all night, because I don't have to work all day, you won't after a while be able to work both day and night and will have to give it up."

I giggled. "You've got our future mapped out, haven't you?"

"Not entirely, no. I just know that it'll contain a lot of shagging," he answered soberly.

I stretched under him. It felt just too comfortable with his warm and strapping body over mine. Who would have thought that the bookworm Hermione Granger would end up in such a physically pleasing relationship? Not I, certainly.

"Not that I'm complaining, but other people are starting to notice what we do behind doors. Lavender approached me last night. She told me to be more prudent where I satisfied my carnal pleasures, her words, because of who you are. She warned me that you would dump me spectacularly very soon because that's what you've been usually doing, and she would have to pick up my pieces, being the fiancée of my best friend and all."

I squeezed my legs together because Draco was slowly moving, thrusting in and pulling out leisurely. I observed his face over me, his closed eyes, relishing, his mouth slightly opened, from last night reddened lips, his strong jaw, grown out from his pointiness as a child, his soft hair falling into his high forehead; it was a magnificent view.

"And what did you say?" he muttered distractedly.

"I said you were magically connected to me and couldn't turn around and leave, even if you wanted. When she concluded that this could be the only reason you would be still with me, Ginny said if that was indeed the only reason, why would you have taken me to the Manor to meet your mother."

His movements stopped immediately and his relaxed face moved into a frown. "Lavender Brown knows that I introduced you to my mother?"

"Yes, shouldn't she? You never said I couldn't tell anyone. I told Ginny and when Lavender made that crude remark, Ginny rubbed it in. Lavender dropped her glass in shock. I had Ginny explain to me what was so important about you introducing me to your mother. You could have told me," I scolded a little bit.

"Bloody hell," he cursed and shot up, startling me. "Get up, Hermione. We have to get up and see my mother. See how much damage control we can still do." He cursed. "How could I have forgotten? +"*+"*%& (colourful swearing). You're distracting me, Granger. *ç%%& (more swearing)"

"Wh…what? What's so terrible about Lavender knowing that we are dating?"

He was already darting into the bathroom. "I'll tell you in the shower. Come on, Granger."

I followed quickly. You can't have been in a war and not run when you see somebody scrambling. Some reflexes will only die with you. Like I will always duck when I see green light coming at me.

While we were soaping us off, he explained quickly. "Brown is the fastest gossip under the sun. The last thing the public knew was that I was engaged to Astoria Greengrass. It may or may not have made it into the public mind that I sat by your side in St. Mungo's but we contained that with our story of concerned co-worker played in front of Brown and Patil, remember?"

I nodded. Of course, I remembered. I had played my part.

"If the story gets out that I introduced you to my mother before I made a public statement that Astoria is not engaged to me but to Theo and that our bond is legally non-existent, it will cast a very dubious light on Astoria. She'll take a huge hit in reputation. She'll be marked as a scorned woman, and her father will have no choice but to withdraw his consent. She won't even be able to marry Theo, whether he wants her or not. And I won't have that on my conscience. Theo will never forgive me. And Astoria has done nothing wrong."

I felt a growl lie in wait, when Draco jumped so quickly to another woman's defence. But by the piercing glance he shot me, it died in my throat. This was no time for jealousy.

We were done in mere minutes. With an additional cleaning charm, all traces and odours of the previous night were removed, much to my chagrin. I liked our mutual smell.

While we scrambled into our clothes, I questioned: "Can your mother have blocked the fireplace? I don't want to get stuck and it would cost more time."

His piercing glance said it all. "I'm a Malfoy, she can't block my house to me," he scoffed.

"Really?" I just wanted to confirm that we would have free access to the house while slipping into my trousers, my good old trusted jeans. He misunderstood me. I felt his scowl more than I saw it. "I don't need to prove that I am my father's son, do I?"

While buttoning up my blouse, I looked over to him where his head just vanished into his jumper. The platin blond shock of hair coming out just had to be exactly the same as Lucius Malfoy's. The face that came out was softer and slightly different but then, he had years to catch up with sharp lines, and his mother's genes had to have softened his face somewhat. But the jaw line, the mouth, the cheekbones, the forehead and the eye colour were exactly the same as his father's. Century old inbred markers of a family trait insured that an heir was surely his father's son. There was no doubt. Narcissa had a different kind of blond and a different face. It occurred to me in that moment that in our union another dimension had materialized: old magic versus new. They just never ended, the dimensions of difference between me and Draco Malfoy.

While talking about the compow at one point, Draco had tried to point out that there were similarities as well between us, incredibly enough.

"With regard to the dimensions of dichotomy, even just the ones listed in the book, we are not that different. We are both human, we are both young, you didn't grow up poor, we are both magical, etc."

I had glanced sideways at him, blinking. "Did you just point out to me, when there are about ten dimensions that we differ upon, that there are four vague dimensions we are alike on?"

Malfoy had blushed and lowered his head, caught.

Which made our shared magic stronger, by the way. I shook my head. "No, not really," I answered his question regarding his parentage.

Something of my doubts must have sunk in with him, though. Because as soon as we were done dressing, he grabbed my arm and said: "We are apparating."

A minute later, we had landed on the door step of Malfoy Manor and Draco had pushed open the front doors. They opened before his hand had really touched the wood. More old magic. He left me in the drawing room, and went through the house, calling for his mother. She joined me with him another two minutes later. She looked concerned but not flustered.

"Draco, what on earth, ..

"No time, mother. Have you contacted Theo Nott?"

"Yes, he confirmed his engagement to Astoria."

"Good. Have they made it public?"

"I believe he said they wanted to wait for the New Year. Why?"

"Because the gossip will get around quicker than that. Can you drop a line to your trusted friend at the prophet? We'll have to invent a story that the true love between Astoria and Theo made our engagement invalid or something. She cannot take the blame for breaking her engagement to me because I'm in love with another woman."

I choked as much as Narcissa Malfoy. For him to say it out loud to his mother was too much.

"Draco, let's sit down and talk …"

"There's no time, mother. We have to protect her."

A thought struck me. "Is Rita Skeeter still working for the Prophet?" I threw in.

Both Malfoys turned to me. "I believe she's been degraded to a freelancer after her book fiasco. Why do you ask?" Draco eyed me suspiciously.

"What do you think she would do for a story of true love conquering?"

"What do you have in mind, Ms Granger?"

I smiled. Draco later told me he was awed, because my smile looked seriously devilish at that time. And then I explained my plan.

.

An hour later, I sat alone in the Drawing room, enjoying a late breakfast, courtesy of Deezy and Mrs Malfoy. Draco and his mother had met up with Rita at the Daily Prophet to give a statement regarding his non-existing engagement to Astoria Greengrass but her existing one to Theodore Nott. They had quickly flooed Theo and he had joined them there with Astoria at his side. They had all delivered an Oscar worthy performance, I was later told, of true love between Theo and Astoria and the fantastical story of Draco giving up his rights to let them have their happiness and the bond dissolving. In times after war as we were, we needed all the happiness we could get, and stories like that the Malfoys were not only heartless buggers; and they had skidded nicely over the fact that a pureblooded engagement was not that easily dissolved.

Mrs Malfoy had called Rita per floo and had used my sword over her head, her being an unregistered animagus, much to Draco's delight. Draco, of course, had known as well, since he had talked to her in her animagus form in fourth year, but to him it hadn't been that prominent. Seeing her chance to recover some of her clout, after what had started out as a tremendous success and had turned into a disaster with her book, through a juicy story like that sweetened the deal, and Rita had agreed quickly to our wishes to avoid Azkaban. And so Draco and his mother had gone off together to the Daily Prophet.

Of course, we hadn't told Rita my role in the whole business. While explaining my plan, Draco had quickly decided to leave me out of it for now, and I had agreed. Rita didn't even know that I was in the Manor. When it came to saving reputation, a second woman in the picture never looked good. We could wait and make it more believable that our work together (and after we figured out what we could actually do with the compow) had brought us closer if we waited a bit.

And so, I sat alone in the Manor by croissants and tea, waiting for them to return. After bringing my refreshments, Deezy had disappeared quickly again. But after fifteen minutes she came by another time to see if I needed anything else. She had a certain determined look on her face, scowling, and this time she lingered a bit, pretending to dust a spotless table top, and when I asked her if there was something on her mind, she wrung her Malfoy crested pinny between her hands.

"Deezy bring you food for the last few days. She has seen you and Master Malfoy together. I wants to know, Hermione Granger, what your intentions are toward the young master."

I almost spit out my tea. What my intentions were toward Draco Malfoy? And I was asked by a house-elf?

"Why do you want to know?" I hedged. I had no idea what my "intentions" were.

"We hears certain things. We knows that Hermione Granger wants to give all house-elves clothes. I wants to know if Hermione Granger will become the new Mrs Malfoy and if she will give clothes to all the house-elves when she does. Because Deezy wants no clothes. Deezy likes it, working for the Malfoys. The old Master wasn't very nice, he was always angry and punished the house-elves, but Deezy likes Master Draco. I takes care of him since he was a baby. He forbid Deezy to punish herself for speaking her mind. And Ms Narcissa is a good mistress. She gives us work to do but not too much. And we wants to know if Ms Granger gives us clothes when she becomes the new mistress and not allow us to work for the Malfoys anymore."

Totally perplexed, I stared at the little house-elf. Looking up, I saw more house-elves behind the door frame, peeking in, nodding their little greyish-brown heads to Deezy's speech.

"Deezy," I started and then halted, because I didn't really know what to say. I decided to go with some truth. "Deezy, it's not at all certain if I will become anything in the house. So, you won't have to worry about me giving you clothes."

Deezy tilted her head and squeezed her eyes shrewdly. "But Master Draco never stayed with one woman. He tell Deezy how he don't like their manipulations to capture him. You be important to him if he stay with you in your apartment. And he bring you here."

I was stunned. Did everybody see how deeply connected we were? The emotions only recently surfaced for us but had it been clear to everybody else how we felt? Was it so obvious to the world that Draco and I belonged together that they were all fine with it? Was that why my friends had been so pacified yesterday evening?

"I…," I started again. But words failed me. The enormity of the obviousness of Draco's and my connection left me speechless. Highly unusual. "Deezy, why don't we worry about that if it should ever come to pass? We'll have a heart to heart if ever it becomes clear that I would have anything to say in the Manor, alright? Which I really don't know at the moment. And…" I added because Deezy opened her mouth to protest. "… and we'll find a compromise. A clean pinny at least is a step up from a dirty old pillowcase with holes."

"I makes it all by myself," Deezy said proudly. "From an old pillowcase," she added sheepishly.

I laughed. "Well, there you go, then. At least, you are somewhat properly dressed. Without your master or mistress giving you clothes." I quickly finished because Deezy already looked ready to panic at the word "dressed".

"Deezy, all I want is to make you happier, with decent work conditions and reimbursements for your work, not working in rags. But I won't do it by making you unhappy. We'll figure something out."

Deezy nodded. "Make Master Draco happy, you do. That'll make us happy."

I was stunned again. To finish this awkward conversation, I was able to say to her "I'll see what I can do.", at which she turned to leave with another nod. I saw the other house-elves by the door retreat quietly as well and was left alone with my thoughts. I sank back against the backrest of the silk-sofa I was sitting on and stared out of the French doors into the beautiful garden. It was a bit dark and wet, since it was late December, but I could imagine that it would be stunningly green in the spring and summer. I let my imaginations run freely.

Was it really so obvious to everybody that Draco and I were in love? Were we? He said it last night, but was I? Did I love him? The way I had loved Ron? Was it the same feeling?

No. It wasn't. It clearly wasn't. It was so much bigger. In comparison, my feelings for Ron had been nothing but an extended crush. When I was with Draco, I was flooded with tingling from head to toe and I couldn't wait to jump him and feel him, feel his skin against me, against mine. Part of the tingling may have originally come from the magic connecting us but it had developed from there. I didn't tingle in anticipation of his magic touching me. I tingled expecting him to touch me. Draco and I had a very physical connection, very … fulfilling. I don't think I can mention it enough. Although the yearning for the skin-on-skin-feeling could be understood as a want to connect without barriers, the question remained: Could that count as love? I wasn't sure if I could answer that.

But considered from a different point of view, it made more sense: if you love someone, you cannot imagine parting with him. Could I imagine just walking away from Draco and never see him again? I had known that already in the library two days ago. I was so connected to him that I just couldn't walk away without heartbreak. I felt my heart clenching in my chest at a vision of me turning around and walking away from him.

There was my answer. No. Definitely, no. I couldn't walk away. The vision of me turned around and ran back in his arms. The vision of Draco embraced me and held me tight, speaking in my hair that he loved me, in an echo of his string of confessions from the previous night. His vision had had his eyes squeezed painfully at seeing me walk away. My heart swelled again at seeing him so in need. There was no way around it. He needed to be with me and when I was honest (and I prided myself on my blatant honesty) I needed him, too. We balanced each other. We both were the better person for the influence from the other.

Did I need him enough to fight for years to come against tiring prejudices against our relationship? But I'd been fighting all my life against prejudices and stereotypes: as a bookworm, as a muggleborn, as a girl, as a know-it-all, as a plain girl and so on and so forth. The whole life was fighting against somebody else's conception of you. So, I would have a new focus. Big deal. I had my friends behind me and that was the most important part about that decision. Harry had said, go, get him. I decided there and then that I would take up the fight against anybody opposing us. Hermione Granger had a new crusade, fighting for her love of Draco Malfoy. Ha.

That thought made me giggle nervously. But I liked the idea very much. Chewing on my fingernail, I saw myself in my mind, dressed to the nines, sneering at Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil because they couldn't believe me standing next to Draco at an official event in the Ministry, with his hand protectively and possessively at my waist, turning his head ever so often to smirk my way.

My friends had accepted it easily enough. But my friends were the easy part of the equation. They could be stubborn and set in their ways but they weren't malicious: if they saw that something was good for me, they would accept it.

His friends on the other way would be a totally different ball game. We had an ally in Theo, and probably Astoria. Draco had said, Pansy and Blaise already knew of his interest in me but how would they react if they knew how deeply we connected? Did they know about the compow? Did they think that I had captured him magically and he wasn't in his right mind? Would they accept me in the end or treat me as a second class hussy for the rest of our lives? We would have to see.

Looking around the splendour of the Manor, I wondered if I could live there. Did I have to? Could I become a part of Draco's world in this mansion? Did I have to take the decision right now? No. I didn't. I was nervous enough even realising finally that I wasn't only falling for his physical charms, but that I was heart-bursting, breath-catching, mind-dizzying, womb-tingling in love with Draco Malfoy and how to tell him. I didn't have to decide where I wanted to spend my life with him.

I was pulled out of my thoughts, when Draco came back with his mother. They brought Theo and Astoria with them. Narcissa stepped out of the fireplace first, of course, followed closely by Theo, Astoria and Draco bringing up the end.

Mrs Malfoy scurried out of the room with a nod to me as soon as she stood up straight but Theo smiled and came toward me as soon as he saw me sitting on the couch.

"Hermione, fancy seeing you here." He smiled brightly. I got up and stepped toward him. When he got close enough, he took up my hand and gave it a kiss. My stomach fluttered. Theo had always made my stomach flutter. Even when Draco had dragged me into the Greengrass mansion and we had accidentally met in Astoria's room, he had made my stomach flutter. Even though I was fighting with Draco at that time if we had anything going on or not, my innards had quivered seeing Theo. I didn't quite know what it was about him that made me weak in my knees but he had always been able to. That was the reason I had let him kiss me in the library. I wanted to see how weak I could get. Purely scientific. Maybe it was his Slytheriness, and I had a thing for cunning, sneakily smart men. Hm, that sounded about right.

"Theo, you know me, there's no reason …" I tried to protest. I saw Astoria emerging from the fireplace. She looked stunning, with a healthy glow to her face (I expected an extensive glamour), in a cerulean blue robe that reflected her eyes and made her look regal. She saw Theo standing close to me and looked immediately piqued.

"Ah, but you are officially an acquaintance of the pureblood elite, now. I can see the magic swirling around you. I have to greet you properly, Hermione Granger."

"Well, then, Theodore Nott, pleasure to meet you." I tittered against my nervous stomach muscles and simply imitated Andromeda's greeting formula. He still held my hand and it made me fidgety. I didn't know if I had to say something different but it sounded polite enough.

Theo's grin confirmed that I'd done it right. "The pleasure on my side exceeds yours, madam," he said, bending over my hand again. I looked down at the back of his head, at his brown hair, and wondered if it would be as soft as Draco's. I heard Astoria sharply inhale but before I could look her way, I felt my hand ripped away from Theo and my magic being poked at as if with a pitchfork. I froze. This was decidedly uncomfortable if not quite painful.

"Once is enough, Nott," I heard a familiar voice hiss in maliciousness. I hadn't heard that voice in a long time and almost forgotten. It shook up my old alertness toward anything Malfoy and with it, an uncommon fury reared up in me. How dared he? Theo was just being nice.

I gathered my magic around me and slapped his out of mine. It felt like touching fire when I pushed him out. It left an after burn. I turned around to where he held my hand and looked in icy grey eyes freeze-burning in equal fury.

"Draco, how did it go?" I snarled, trying to make polite conversation in light of the war our eyes were waging, stabbing each other with icicles.

"I would tell you if you could give me your attention for a few seconds," he hissed back.

"Ah," Theo said, clearing his throat. "Sorry, mate, I just …"

"Theo, why don't we go and see if we can help Narcissa with anything?" Astoria interrupted him, sounding gleeful, pulling him on the arm out of the room with her. It didn't matter to us if they stayed or went. Draco and I were very busy trying to see who could annihilate the other better with a look alone.

As soon as I heard the door slam close I hissed at him: "Don't you dare spear your magic in me like that again."

"What, Granger, having sensibilities? Pity, you didn't have them when you let Theo smooch you in my house of all places," he sneered back.

"He kissed my hand, for crying out loud. What's wrong with that? Especially since you made me into a person who now has to be greeted with a hand kiss? Without my permission or consent, I might add," I blustered.

"Oh, you would have rather remained "the mudblood" in the eyes of my friends and family? Well, Granger, you should have said so, but unfortunately, there's no going back," he hissed at me.

"That's not the point and you know it," I barked.

"What is the point then, Granger?" he snarled.

"The point is that Theo just kissed my hand and you stabbed me with your magic in retaliation."

"Well, excuse me for erroneously doing something that we've done many times before and you welcomed, and for reacting to your nervousness when I came in." His eyes closed to slits, he was the picture of a snake, breathing fire.

"I was nervous because I had done some serious thinking while waiting for you to come back from a rescue mission for another woman's reputation and came to an important conclusion and was uncertain how to tell you and congratulations, you completely spoilt the moment," I barked at him.

"Ah, so your nervousness had nothing to do with Theo Nott? You weren't the least bit affected by Theo standing so close to you, touching and kissing your hand? Funny, I thought I felt it and you looked rather flustered because of it," he snarled viciously.

I felt like slapped. He was jealous. He was going out of his mind in jealousy, like I had been whenever I had imagined him with another girl. But his viciousness felt like a gush of ice-cold water doused over me and I had to breathe deeply to shake it off.

He took my need to breathe the wrong way. "That's what I thought. I wonder what we've been doing these last few days if you were in love with Theo Nott," he continued to snarl. I could see the mad pain in his freezing cold eyes, though, the same pain I had seen in my vision when I imagined turning away from him just a few minutes ago: betrayal, loss and hurt all rolled into one.

"I'm not in love with Theo. I'm in love with you," I said like in trance, frozen to the bone by his viciousness. My speaking centre on autopilot had spoken before my brain had processed the layout of the situation in front of me entirely: Draco shaking in fury because of his jealousy, seeing me just standing with another man, going out of his mind snarling, forcing me to say something pacifying.

Now it was his turn to freeze. "Excuse me?"

"Just before you came in, I had a nice chat with Deezy concerning my "intentions" toward you. Waiting for you to come back, I had time to think about it. Subsequently, I was wondering if I could live here with you after all that's happened or if we would have to find another accommodation. I also wondered because Deezy approached me, if everybody else can see that we are in love, when even the house-elves notice. It seems everybody else saw it before we did," I continued my speech while my brain tried to make sense out of the situation that I was forced to admit that I loved Draco Malfoy because he was freaky jealous because of a hand kiss.

Draco had listened to me with rapt attention. I saw the ice melting the more I talked and as soon as I said the last word, he scooped me up and carried me the three steps to the French doors separating the Drawing room from the garden and pressed me against them and his lips to mine.

I had missed this feeling. It had only been a few hours, three at the most since the last snogging, but I had already missed this feeling. He had been right this morning. I would have to rethink my career plans, at least for now. I wouldn't be able to work a whole day separated from Draco without kissing opportunities. Maybe we could find work together but we would have to build in kissing breaks or we wouldn't get anything done, working.

And squabbling felt energizing but so wrong, because we couldn't well kiss when we snarled over a disagreement at each other. We would have to find a solution for that.

Well, all this angry energy was put to good use now, as Draco kissed me like he wanted to swallow me whole. In the way he did so well, he nipped and tucked and sucked and pulled on my lips, smoothing his tongue over the inside and touching my tongue in the electrifying interplay that we mastered so well. I never wanted to stop. I really didn't care that I was standing pressed against a cold glass window door in his house with his mother and friends waiting for us to join them, knowing full well what we likely did. I couldn't care less. I wanted him to continue kissing me forever and ever. I wanted to smell and taste and feel him like I did in that moment every day. I wanted the freedom to have the physical access to this man whenever I wanted him as I did in that moment. I wanted to have the right to claim him as mine whenever necessary.

And with the lust, the want, the need for this man flooding me, I recognized the whole picture: the three pillars of a relationship standing up straight and supporting the love, the lust and the trust and the intimate connection. They were pillars only in the loosest of sense, because they didn't quite have a form. They were shapeless, intermingling amongst each other. It wasn't quite clear cutting where the trust stopped and the intimacy started or if the lust ended or developed into the trust. But they were pillars in a way that they held up the emotions and without them the love would crumble eventually.

And we had all that. Trust had had the hardest time to make it into our relationship, but we had it. I trusted him to protect or at least warn me against dark forces from his side and he trusted me to soothe his aching soul. I trusted him not to treat me like a second class human being but an equal and he trusted me to overlook his social glidges, like his snarling and insulting. We trusted each other that we had enough between us to keep going. We trusted us to fulfil each other's intimate needs above and beyond the ordinary. And we did.

This time, I opened my magic up to him. I tapped his border and simply pulled him in. He came willingly and spread himself out within my magic as he had done the previous night, connecting every dot. It felt as if he was releasing into me and we both moaned at the feeling. I itched to have him shag me again, especially since I felt his hardened shaft pushing against my belly. I felt my juices flowing just from the kissing, smoothing my channel, ready to receive him.

As if reading my thoughts, Draco murmured against my mouth: "Gawds, I want you, Granger. You can't ever leave me because I'll go insane if I can't have you."

I chuckled. "Likewise. I just thought the same thing."

With glittering eyes he smirked. "A quickie, then?"

I rolled my eyes to heaven and conceded: "I suppose we'll have to. Itching like we do right now, we won't be able to face your company. But maybe you could let me remove my back from the window where everybody could see us clearly."

He snickered. "I like your attitude."

He apparated us to his suite of rooms, just inside the entrance door, and had his hands on the button of my trousers before we stood properly. He ripped my jeans down two seconds later. I abhorred tight leg clothing and therefore, once he had them down past the hips, they fell the rest of the way. His hands freed, he opened his belt and button while I pulled down the zipper and his trousers followed the way of mine. I put my hands inside his boxers and negotiated the waistband carefully around his tip. He pulled my panties over my hips to have them go the same way as the previous clothing and lifted my leg before they were halfway down, pulling my foot out of the opening. He was in me before my panties came to rest around my ankle.

"Haa," I sighed, relishing the familiar feeling of him nailing me.

"Yessss," he hissed at the same time, and started moving almost immediately, slowly pushing in.

"Bring your legs up and around me," he murmured against my lips, pressing me against the door and pushing his hands around to my bottom. "I'll hold you."

"Okay," I murmured back and, holding myself on his neck, I wrapped my legs around his hips and tightened them as I had done numerous times so far.

"Mmmm," he made, taking his hands out one by one from below my bottom, cooling it with the missing warmth of his hands. He hooked his arms under my armpits and supported his hands against the door, holding me up this way. "I love it when you do that."

Before I could answer anything coherent, he started to slam into me with a speed reminding me of charging horses. It felt breathtaking and I closed my eyes to enjoy it better. Leaning back against the door, the friction from his quick movements rubbing me right, I felt and heard his moaning pants into my face, his lips touching my skin from time to time when he got too close and the coiling tingling in the apex between my legs. I felt naughty, being shagged by a former enemy against the door of his room while his mother and friends were waiting for us, and it gave the coiling an extra edge. I squeezed my legs together around his hips against the tension in my pelvis and he answered with another low hiss of "Haa, yesss."

Opening my eyes, I saw him looking at me, his piercing grey eyes, then down at my mouth. He dipped forward, pulling on my lower lip once, twice and murmured: "Do it again, squeezing me."

I did it again while inserting my hands into his hair. He moaned and took one hand of the door behind me. I sagged a little down but his body held me up. "I can't do this much longer, Hermione. Come for me. Come on my prick."

His hand was between my legs with lightning speed, fondling my highly electrified knob, and before I knew it, it jolted through me like an electrical surge. I threw my head back against the door, screaming "Haa" and clamped down on him inside and out. His continuing movement caused even more heat to spread and my clamp to tighten until it was almost painful.

"Haa, haa, haa, haaa," I moaned, climbing higher and higher in tone, stretching backwards against the door with the heat flushing me.

"Haa, Granger, haa-aaa," he did likewise, slowing his movements with the spurts of release. After the neck breaking speed from before, sensitising the entire area, his slow strokes put the right pressure on certain points and I felt an after wave crashing over me. I bit my lip against crying out again. It was close to impossible how he fit so well that I almost came immediately every time he so much as touched me in my sensitive spots. I'd never heard of such a thing.

Draco noticed my renewed shudder and flutters, and with a proud little grin and chuckle he trust a few more times to prolong my sensation and took my lower lip between his to pull. I squeezed him again and felt the air from his satisfied sigh blow over my mouth.

When he was entirely spent and my tension subsiding, he rested his head once again in the crock of my neck, breathing heavily on my heated skin. I enjoyed the tingling left behind by our activity and had to think about how it would be to sit down in an office chair now, when my entire pelvis was still on fire. I giggled at the thought, what we would do if we ever worked together. It couldn't be any work that required our constant presence. Or sitting. That would be impossible. I giggled again.

Draco kissed my neck and came up from his resting place. "What's so funny, Granger?"

He looked complacent, not the least bit upset for my laughing. There was an advantage to have a man with a strong ego who wouldn't doubt himself every time you laughed, thinking you laughed about him.

"I just thought what would happen if we worked together. And what kind of work we would be able to do if we need "decent" breaks, several times a day. For example, I wouldn't be able to sit down right now. Quite the work ethic."

He grinned. He got the joke. "I told you, we couldn't work. Not in the near future at least."

I smirked back. "And you were right. Again."

"Ah, the gratification to be right. And being told by Hermione Granger of all people." He grinned from ear to ear.

I smiled back. "Don't overdo it. We should scourgify us and get downstairs quickly. You have visitors."

He shrugged. "Theo, I suppose, knows what we're doing. And my mother and Astoria get along well enough, they won't miss us."

None the less, we hurried to get cleaned and dressed again. Draco held me tight to apparate us back down in the Drawing room. And it would have gone well had not Narcissa looked for us the moment we apparated back in the room.

"Draco, where are you … Oh, for Merlin's sake. You haven't been … That's disgusting, Draco. We have visitors. Ms Granger, how could you… ."

"Leave Hermione out of it, mother," Draco interrupted his flustered mother. "And what I do in my house is my business. If I want to give my woman a decent snog, I do it. Be happy that I didn't do it in public. Theo and Astoria are friends, they'll understand."

"Still, I didn't raise you to…"

We had moved toward his mother on our way to join the others in the Dining room for lunch. Draco hadn't let go of me and still held me around the waist. I liked it a lot. I liked his hands on me but that wasn't new. Something else was new.

It was more than embarrassing, this situation. I could have died of shame and I would have, if I had still been the old Hermione Granger who thrived on the approval of people, especially the adults around her. As it was, glowing in the aftermath of our spontaneous satisfying shagging, with Draco's hands still on me, hearing him rebuke his mother, I felt content. In fact, I felt so content and at one with the world that I cut into the bickering of Draco and his mother.

"Mrs Malfoy, we just needed a break. We were interrupted this morning when we realized that we had to start a rescue mission for some reputations and we just finished what we started this morning. Shall we join your guests now or do we have to discuss it for another ten minutes, making them wait?"

Both Malfoys looked at me as if had been dropped down from Mars. Or Venus. Otherworldly anyways. Narcissa recovered first.

"Erm, right, Ms Granger. Let's not let them wait any longer." With that she turned, a little dazed, I admit, and walked back to the dining room.

Draco, on the other hand, still stood rooted to the spot. "Draco, let's go," I urged.

"Did you just tell my mother that we needed a shagging break because we weren't able to finish this morning, and she turned and walked away?" he asked incredulously.

"Err, I suppose?" I said a little flustered from his reaction.

He still regarded me as if I had hit him in the face and he couldn't quite fathom what happened. Then he stepped forward and, taking my face in his hands, spoke right against my mouth.

"Marry me," he said.

I probably had the same facial expression as he just had. "Excuse me?" I said.

"Marry me," he repeated. "I need a wife who tells my mother to shut up and take a hike. Especially when I want to enjoy the benefits of married life."

I snickered. He wasn't really proposing. "I'll think about it. Thanks for the sentiment," I replied and kissed him.

"You do that," he replied after the kiss and, taking my hand, he led me over to the dining room, where the others were still waiting, a cold lunch spread in front of them.

Narcissa Malfoy still looked a mix of a little unwell and appalled. Theo, on the other hand, greeted us grinning broadly and Astoria still looked a little piqued.

"Draco, where have you been? We waited. I thought you just needed to clear the air," she aired her indignation over our lack of propriety.

The man on my side smirked his trademark smirk but with a sparkle in his eyes. "Clearing the air, that's exactly what we did, didn't we, Hermione?"

"Absolutely, Draco. Clearing the air," I agreed mockingly serious.

Theo couldn't hold his amusement in any longer and hooted: "Oh, you guys are hilarious. I can't believe you two."

We had reached the table in the meantime. Theo and Astoria were sitting on Narcissa's right side of the table, Astoria next to Narcissa. Draco led me around to the other side of the table where we had sat the last time. Only this time, he moved one down and put me on his right, right next to the head of the table. What little I did know of wizarding custom (I had enlightened myself a little bit to enrich my knowledge about wizard traditions in general, after my faux-pas of not knowing about such things as proper introductions) I knew that was his place, to the left of the head. Now, I knew also that the woman or wife of the head was sitting on his right, where Narcissa's place was. For Draco to make room on his right, even in giving up his rightful place, was a statement. One that his mother couldn't miss. And she didn't. Only worse would have been if he had sat down right at the head and shooed his mother away for me to sit on his right. But I supposed he thought we had shocked her enough for one day. As it was, she inhaled deeply and sent daggers my way, shooting from her eyes.

"So, tell me," I distracted from the clear confrontation of the seating arrangements, "how did it go with Rita?"

"Oh, Rita was eager enough. What do you hold over her? I've never seen her so eager to please," Theo enlightened me. "She just took down what we fed her and asked almost no questions."

"Well, you have to admit though, that the story we fed her will keep the gossip mills running for a few days. That should get her back in the green and she didn't want to miss a thing we told her," Astoria added.

That almost worried me. A pacifying Rita was an oxymoron. Astoria was a little naïve, I thought. I turned to Draco who had his forehead set in furrows.

"Draco, what do you think?"

"I was concerned that she took it without her regular sensation seeking. But she has to stick to the facts we gave her. If she brings a story that will not reflect exactly what we told her, she knows she's done for. I told her so, as parting words."

I nodded. That sounded more like it.

Theo grinned at me from across the table: "It was your idea, wasn't it?"

I lowered my head, not wanting to boast. But Draco kissed my temple from the side and said: "Of course, it was."

"Well, I hope to see you two at the party tonight." Theo shook us out of our little bubble of content.

"Party? What party?" Draco inquired.

Theo smirked. He could do it just as well as Draco. With wagging eyebrows he explained: "The New Year's Eve party? Forgot today's date? At Blaise's place."

"Oh," I said. I turned to Draco, wondering if he wanted to go. I knew I would have to face his friends at one point in time but did it have to be on the last day of the year? Couldn't I finish my hell of a year with a quiet night? On the other hand, it was New Year's Eve and what better way to start a new year but to face it head on?

Draco bent to my ear and murmured: "Let's give it a try. If you don't feel at all comfortable, we can always leave and watch the fireworks somewhere else. Heck, we can do our own fireworks at midnight."

I smiled and when I looked at his smirk, I nodded.

I was going to take the New Year head on.

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_A/N: Okay, here's the next instalment. I like the beginning but I'm not quite happy about the explanations why Draco has to hurry to make a public statement and the consequences for Astoria. I made some last minute corrections but I didn't have time to go over it endlessly._

_Let me know what you think, as usual._

_Cheers_

_M_


	35. Doubt

_A/N: Song for this chapter is "Hurts like Heaven" from Coldplay. In case you wonder, I bought the Coldplay album the Easter week and finally got around to listen to it and I quite like it. I'm sure you can tell._

_First mention goes to Edwardloverx3 (sorry, Theo stays, he's a good guy) and scv914 (you're welcome). Next to nikki98, Anon and __2dEVIL iN dISGUISE2__. __Thank you all for your reviews.__ Hey, Beast in Repose, good timing. I was just about to post. Thank you as well. You won't have long to wait. I hope you are still reading._

_This chapter, for once, is not explicit. I'm sorry, it's not the party yet. It's a quiet interlude. It was originally part of the next chapter (the party chapter) but as usual, everything became too long, so I had to cut. It still took some work to get it just right (phew)._

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**Chapter 28: New Year**

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"Deezy said, you hate manipulation," Hermione murmured sleepily. They were lying on her bed, trying to take a nap after returning to her apartment after their interlude at the Manor. They had to catch up with some sleep from the last long night and in anticipation of the New Year's Eve party.

Draco sneered, lying on his back, Hermione at his side, looking at the ceiling. "I do."

Hermione put her hand on his naked stomach and contemplated. She savoured the smoothness and warmth of his skin and the fact that she could touch him. It was still funny how Draco showed his old behaviours, like sneering and insulting and smirking and yet, she understood him differently now. Hermione snuggled against his shoulder and felt his arm creep a little further around her waist. "What about it do you hate so much?" He hadn't said "much" but she could tell by the intensity of his sneer that he was truly disgusted by it. It pleased her that she was able to read the nuances in his face.

He turned his face over to her and her breath hitched once again, looking at his handsome features. His light eyes stood out and she'd always had a thing for light eyes. Blue was her favourite colour and Hermione had been seriously attracted to Ron's blue eyes. Their contrast to his light skin and red hair made the blue truly blue and she loved to look at them, even though the love thing with Ron wasn't meant to be.

Likewise with Draco. Despite his platinum hair, which stood out like a beacon, his light eyes had been the first thing she had noted about him. The granite grey eyes reminded her of ancient rock, of matured wisdom and withstanding the pressure of time. There was a certain power to it, she had always thought, and it had impressed her. And then disappointingly, he had turned out to be a first class arse. He had bullied her for who she was and what she did and for her friendship with Harry. He had called her a mudblood and put her in her place. And now she shared power with him, with Draco Malfoy, and he lay peacefully in her bed, holding her, and he wasn't going anywhere and he was going to take her to a party of his friends.

Feeling his stomach expand with his breathing, she remembered her question. It was very unusual for her to lose her train of thoughts, but Draco Malfoy had that kind of effect on her. Observing her unlikely lover, she could also tell by his furrowed eyebrow that the thought alone of people orchestrating him, angered him but that he tried to stay civil toward her. Her heart hammered a bit against her lips, itching.

"It's an insult to me if people think they can make me do or think something about them that is either exaggerated or simply not right. If they think I'm too stupid to see through their intent," Draco answered her question.

"Hm," Hermione mused. "What if somebody does it erroneously? Why do you always think that people want to trick you?"

"Because that's what I know," Draco growled quietly, turning his head to her. "The people I know plan and execute everything they do to their utmost advantage and benefit. People who don't are considered weak." There was a bitter twitch around his mouth and it reminded Hermione of the fact that altruism and simple niceness had been in short supply in Draco's life growing up, and how strange that was for her. The itching in her lips was still there.

Putting her hand on his cheek, she bent forward and kissed him softly on his mouth, feeling the warmth tingle in her face. It was similar to the warmth she had felt when she had touched the stick that was going to become her wand for the first time, soothing and exciting at the same time. She felt his mouth relaxing under her lips and him responding, turning flush to her. Stroking her hand further to the nape of his neck, she pushed it into his hair and clawed gently over his scalp. Pulling softly on her lips, he sighed and pulled her close to his front. He nestled her under his chin and put his head on top of hers.

"You were the first girl I encountered who gave and wanted absolutely nothing in return. I couldn't believe that you didn't exploit the vulnerable state you found me in." Hermione felt his throat move against her nose when he spoke quietly over her head.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Hermione answered after a minute. "That's who I am."

"I know," Draco said. "But it's exactly what I need. It's soothing. It fills something in me that I didn't know was missing before you filled it."

"Oh." Hermione let it sink in. Then she tried to get closer yet to the skin and the smell of the man she was cuddled against. "You're welcome."

Tightening his arms almost painfully around her, he murmured: "You can never leave, Granger. You'd be solely responsible for my untimely demise."

Hermione nodded. "As long as none of your friends off me, I'll be there."

He nodded in return. "Okay."

Then something occurred to her and with furrowed eyebrow, she added: "But if you ever betray me, I'm gone."

After a contemplative few seconds he said: "But you don't get to decide alone whether I betrayed you or not. We'll have to discuss it.

That struck her as odd and she moved her head back to look at Draco. "Sleeping with another woman is a betrayal, and there are no two opinions."

"Agreed." He frowned but his ice-grey eyes were clear as glacier water. "But I wasn't talking about that kind of cheating. There may be other situations where it may appear and you may think I betrayed you, because you see things in black and white. And I get to say my pieces before you leave."

Hermione hesitated for a moment. That sounded suspiciously Slytherin. "And after you made your position clear I get to decide freely whether I still consider it a betrayal?"

He nodded. "Yes. But if we differ in understanding, you'll have to live with it on your conscience that it'll kill me slowly and painfully when you leave."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were such a drama queen."

He snickered. "I'm just making sure that I'm not losing the best thing that ever happened to me to a fluke of hormonal flushes." He pulled her close again and although it reared in her to answer to his unfair insinuation, she let him and settled against his shoulder again. They were a bit hairy, his demands, but she didn't want to fight right this moment.

"Ron's shoulder felt familiar last night but the smell wasn't right," Hermione said after a moment of calm silence.

She felt his heart skip a beat through her hands on his chest but his voice was calm when he asked. "What were you doing on the weasel's shoulder? When was that?" He was learning fast, after the incident with Theo.

"In the kitchen when I went to get more butterbeer. He apologized for being a jerk to me. He's still one of my best friends and he has the right to embrace me." She felt Draco shift the tension in his guts against her. She understood that he understood, even though he didn't like it. Hermione grinned. If he wanted her to stay with him and hear his side before any drastic decisions because of more than likely misunderstandings to come and in light of his frequent controversial behaviour, she had to make sure that he was aware that Ron and Harry were going to be a part of her life. After a moment, Draco said:

"He'd better apologized. Jerk is his second first name."

"Draco," she admonished. He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead.

"Let's not talk about the weasel or Potter. Sleep, Granger. We need our strength if we want to face my friends tonight."

Hermione sighed. He was right. They didn't need to fight out the borders of their relationship just in that moment. She relaxed against his warm body and tried to let her mind drift off.

As it is with Hermione Granger, there was one thing that she never quite managed properly. Only one thing: and that was how to let a mind drift off easily. Her mind was always filled with things to the brim and she managed to organize her thoughts quite nicely and orderly and usually she fell asleep from exhaustion. But it had a hard time just drifting and not thinking about anything particular. Especially when something nagged on it. In those moments, when no more pressing issues mattered, like surviving and dodging oncoming spells or searching the library top to bottom for the newest edition of "Hogwarts, a History", other things came to the forefront.

"Draco?" she asked quietly.

"Hm?" he mumbled sleepily.

"What happened last night?" She didn't need to explain more. Draco Malfoy knew exactly what she was referring to because he had been thinking about the same thing.

"You filled me instead of taking me in, like you used to," he said calmly.

"That's because you held me instead of poking me, like you used to do," she stated.

He deliberated for a minute and then told her what had been going on in his mind, the previous night: "I have always wondered why a girl as smart as you let me get so close to her; even though we are not exactly enemies anymore. Last night, I had an epiphany that perhaps it did you good, the way I always poked into you; that it had a function, like anchoring. That perhaps, you didn't swallow me always because you had no choice and you were too weak to fight me off, but because you wanted to. I wondered if I was supposed to root you to the ground because I always want to get as deep into you as possible, like a digging root. It feels better, the deeper I get. In my mind, I made the leap that working the compow together like that with your transformational skills, anchored and focussed through my skills, we could transform magic very precisely, and it wasn't indeed just about spell breaking, as you already said. And with that thought, my magic spread out in yours like tree sap. And then you exploded and your magic and you filled me up over my head. And I loved it to be so filled up by you."

Hermione took it in thoroughly, what he said. It made sense, somehow. It rang true, even though logically, there were several gaps and leaps in the argumentation. "You bit me. And I froze. And then I exploded," she mused.

He chuckled. "I did. You were stuck in your mind set, trying to capture the elusive. It doesn't work that way and I wanted to jolt you out of it."

"You turned my entire modus operandi upside down. With the shock from the bite and your magic spread out in mine, my magic reversed its normal direction of ingesting. It turned outward. Nobody aggravates me like you do."

Draco frowned. "Nobody else sees how stuck up you are?"

Hermione hrmpfed. "Perhaps they see it, but they don't know what to do about it. They just leave me be; who knows what Hermione cocks up in her big head, so let's leave her to her thoughts." She rolled her eyes.

He scoffed. "Naturally. That would require that they opened their eyes and saw you for a girl first and that you have your own needs. Somehow it seems to have escaped them. The Weaselette is the only one who sees you as another girl."

"When you call Ginny "Weaselette", do I hear some respect for her?" Hermione teased her contemptuous lover.

With an indistinguishable frown Draco answered: "Somebody who can tame the insufferable Saint Potter deserves respect."

Hermione snorted. "Does that go for the one who tamed the insufferable Malfoy heir as well?"

"Naturally," he grinned.

Hermione was shocked. She had expected him to scoff and deny it. "You consider yourself tamed? By me? How can you live with yourself when you think yourself tamed by a mudblood?"

"Granger," he growled deeply. "You are not allowed to call yourself the m word."

"Yes, I am," she spat.

"No, you are not," he barked back.

"Mudblood, mudblood, I am a mudblood," Hermione sing-sanged, intentionally defying him. He shot over her and covered her mouth with one hand.

"Shut up, Granger. Nobody calls you that but I. I forbid you to call yourself the m word. You are mine. You connected with me in sixth year and now you belong to me and I belong to you, whether you want it or not." He held tight against her struggles and the murderous glances she shot him.

"Listen. No, listen. I consider myself settled because I won't go looking anywhere else. You counter and balance me and I just know, out there, there is nobody else who can do for me what you do. I'm done. I arrived. I stopped searching. Whenever you leave the room, I feel as if something is missing. And I notice it, even when I didn't see you leaving. I don't know why that is, but I can't deny the facts that it is. I will, we will have to face the consequences. I will have to suffer possible ridicule by my friends for my hypocrisy but I deserve it for my own stupidity for being part of Voldemort's scheme. And having been too young is just a limited excuse. However, the ridicule will be short-lived when they see us working and how well we fit together."

Staring into his blazing eyes in his angry face, Hermione couldn't believe how completely Draco understood their situation and how prepared he was to face it. He didn't sound very excited about the fact to be in love, though. In fact, he seemed to loath that he was somehow punished for his participation in something he had grown up to consider as rightful. But he had resigned himself to his fate of being connected to her. Something she was still fighting in her mind.

"You are my other half. You said that in a dream I had about you, the night before Dumbledore's death on the Astronomy Tower. At that time, most inconvenient of course, I didn't want to believe it but your dream self was right. You are my equal. And nothing can change that. I will have to live with it. And I would like to make the best of it."

"Because you are a Malfoy and Malfoy's only deserve the best," Hermione finished his thought, sarcastically. A small twitch around his mouth indicated that he understood.

"I wouldn't have said it out loud this time, but well, yes." Then he smirked.

"So, are we soul mates for all intents and purposes?" Hermione asked as if in trance. She couldn't believe that such a romantic concept, something everybody strived to find because it promised perfect emotional fulfilment and peace, may apply to her and offered so little. She was baffled once again by their inextricable draw to each other on one hand and the fact that they would have never gotten this close if not for the magic. The same magic which was the very reason why they wouldn't have gotten any closer: because her parents weren't magical. She still struggled with the fact that she had loathed Draco because of the way he had treated her and her friends and what he stood for. He seemed to have resigned himself to the fact that he was bound to a muggleborn. None of them was particularly happy about it because of the difficulties it brought along, even though they felt in love. It was bizarre.

Draco Malfoy snorted. "If you want to call it that. I was raised to marry a proper girl and make an heir independent of my feelings for her. I told you about the myth of the perfect match but a concept like soul mates has no use for me. And now I found a woman who jolts me every time she touches me. That is has to be you, the woman who can infuriate me beyond imagination, and that I will have to turn my whole upbringing and everything I knew to be right upside down, affronting my friends and family in the process, I figure, is part of my lot in life." He looked seriously put out while saying that.

"That may be true but you don't have to be so fatalistic about it," Hermione mumbled. Faced with the bleakness and inevitability of their situation once again, she lost the exuberance she'd felt this morning when she realized she loved him. Thinking was a two-sided sword, she realized further. To mull things over in her mind could go both ways. It could convince her or it could raise her doubts. Faced with his rough exterior, it shot through Hermione's mind that once again, although allegedly perfectly matched for a magical adjunction, her partner was not going to lay her down on a bed of roses. He just wasn't the type. Perhaps she simply didn't attract that kind. Or perhaps she didn't deserve a bed of roses. Perhaps, to be in "love" wasn't enough to make one happy. That thought made her sad and tired. Why was she constantly fighting to better the world if nobody appreciated it, including her? Just this morning, she had decided she was going to fight the world for her love of Draco Malfoy but she hadn't expected that she would have to fight her own thoughts. What did she need to be happy? She wasn't sure. The recent bliss with Draco Malfoy hadn't been too bad but was exceptional shagging equal to happiness?

He paused. "Isn't that what soul mates are about, fate?"

"Maybe," Hermione conceded grudgingly.

With eyes narrowed to slits, he moved a little back from her to take in her full face, bedded on her curls: "Why am I getting the picture that you try to find a reason for falling in love with me when it's so clear that you did?"

"Because I am," Hermione mumbled.

Scrutinizing her, he asked quietly: "Why?"

She sighed. "I just remembered the talk I had with Luna."

"Do tell."

"I got her for a quick chat at the dinner party. She wasn't aware that her mother was adjuncted. She said, she only saw that her mother was obsessed with her book. She was positively giddy, when Magda came over and they worked on it, and morose when not. But Luna didn't think that they were in love, Magda and Ariadne, just very focused to get the book further. When Magda was killed, her mother went into shock for three weeks. After that time of grief, she collected herself to continue the book but she was only halfway there. And then, the accident happened."

"You think she did it to herself?" he asked soberly.

Hermione shook her head. "No, I think she was perhaps a bit careless because of the shock, paralysed like we were. Luna was quite firm that her mother would have never left her intentionally behind, and I believe her. Luna has a knack to see what is really there, even if the explanations are more than bizarre. I don't think Ariadne took her life intentionally, not even subconsciously. It was an accident."

A pause occurred. Draco eyed her thoughtfully and waited for her to continue. When she didn't, it was more than clear that the talk with Luna had brought up other issues. He inquired: "What's on your mind, Granger?"

Addressed, Hermione gave her thoughts reluctantly: "Luna was absolutely certain that her mother was not in love with her adjunction partner because she sensed it. Interpersonally, there was nothing but friendship between her mother and her friend, Luna said. But then, in the Luna way, where you are not even sure that she sees you, she hit me with the statement that it was entirely different between us two. Another person who sees our connection."

"Then why do you want to deny it?"

"I don't want to deny it, I just want to know why. Why us? We are so unlikely to become a couple as a flobberworm and a dragon. Why couldn't we have adjuncted with somebody less complicated? I can't believe that there was nobody else who could have made a decent adjunction with me. Why did I have to adjunct and then fall for the one guy who is the least likely and makes the most trouble?"

"Oh, thanks," he said sarcastically.

"You know what I mean, Draco. You just told me the same thing. If there was a woman who would make more trouble for you if you hooked up with her, she has yet to be found."

Draco pulled a face. "True."

Hermione slapped him on the chest for his nonchalance. "Which brings us back to the point that it is likely "determined" by the powers that be or whatever, fate, hence the dream, which brings us to the point, again, that it's not our free will."

Draco sighed. It was definitely some kind of penance for his meddling in the maniac's scheme that he had to fall for the one woman who could make him doubt his own feelings with her rationality. She had a point. But either way, there was a point for them to be together and they just had to find it. So, why constantly questioning everything?

"See, this is one of the reasons why I didn't mind just marrying one chick to breed her. Feelings make everything so much more complicated," he said drily, wiping his face in exasperation.

Hermione was almost moved to tears from his cruel remark and rolled on her back. "So, now you're saying that you regret having any feelings for me?"

He got up on his knees in agitation, snapping at her: "No, Granger, pay attention. What I said was that it is quite annoying to deal with your swinging emotions. When in doubt, and I don't blame you for it, why don't you just hold onto what we know: the magic determined us to adjunct, therefore it can't be wrong to be together, as difficult as it may become. Andromeda told us that our energies are streamlined, we fit, and that is not magical. Shagging you is phenomenal and for that reason alone, I wouldn't be going anywhere in the near future. And that's only on one hand. There are all the other reasons why we are and should stay together." He held up his right hand, all five fingers stretched up, ticking off his middle and ring finger.

When Hermione didn't answer, busy blinking away the tear residue in her eyes, he leaned over her until their noses almost touched. "Did you forget how good we feel together? Did you forget how our two magical fields mingle? This morning, just a few hours ago, you stood up to my mother and told her to shut up when you want to shag me. And remember what Andromeda said: our compow likes it particularly when you accept me and after what I realized last night, it makes sense. We are getting closer, step by step. It all makes sense somehow and we just have to find out why. Why do you always want to doubt, Granger?"

"I don't want to doubt," she protested. "I can't help it if they pop up in my head, these controversial thoughts." The fact that she doubted clearly angered her, but she avoided looking at him.

Draco looked down at the woman beneath him who couldn't face him. What would make Hermione Granger unable to stand up for herself? Self-doubt. Brought on by the absurdity of the situation once again. Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy in love. Absurd.

"You don't trust yourself," he said, realization dawning.

Wide-eyed, brown into grey, earth to sky, she turned to him and said: "I just realized that I love you this very morning. I thought it through, waiting in the manor. And I rationalized and decided for what we have, every step of the way. If my brain convinces me of something which turns out to be faulty, I won't know what to believe anymore. And I'm deadly afraid of making a mistake like that."

Draco Malfoy was flabbergasted. "How can you doubt yourself, with your reputation of brightest witch of our age, when everybody else trusts your skills?"

Her eyebrow angrily furrowed, she turned her head away again and replied: "I trust my magical skills. I don't trust feelings. Love is a flighty thing. It's easily persuaded to be non-existent. Or it turns out to be. I was convinced that I loved Ron for four years and when we finally got together, it was completely wrong. I don't want to make the same mistake again. I want you, but at times it feels so predetermined, so overwhelming as if I had no choice, as if I have no saying in it. What if I can't live with your roughness anymore? What if you can't live with my bookishness anymore or you get bored of me? I do love you, but what if I fall out of love a few years down the road? I will be stuck with you, whether I want to or not, because we are magically connected."

In the face of her anger over her doubts, Draco Malfoy didn't quite know how to react. He felt his world coming down around his ears. If Hermione didn't trust her feelings, what were they doing here? And then it hit him.

"You are afraid of falling. You want control over everything. You rationalize your feelings because you need a reason for them, a means to control them. And on the other hand, you want to feel but you are afraid of falling."

Feeling the absurdity of the situation and ignoring Hermione's shocked face, he laughed. It started as a low chuckle but quickly developed into a full blown belly laugh. It was all the more tantalizing because his belly rested on Hermione's belly and they rubbed nicely against each other when he laughed. When he looked at Hermione who waited with blazing but wet eyes for his bout of hilarity to subside, he had to laugh even more.

When he felt Hermione struggle below him to get him off, he wheezed for air and chuckled: "Granger, you're killing me. It would have been a field day in Slytherin land. Hermione Granger is so brainy that she doesn't trust her feelings. Ha." Another bout shook him. And then he slipped off his resting place because she finally shoved him off.

"There is nothing funny about it," she snapped at him with a furious face.

"That's the spirit, Granger," he kept snickering. "Get angry. Anger is the best remedy for self-doubt. When you're angry, you feel. Intensely. I should know; I've been angry all my life. Do you doubt your anger?"

When she turned away from him to scoot of the bed and storm out of the room, he grabbed her arm to stop her. "Oh, no, you will not run away." He pulled her back to his side and when she struggled, tears in her eyes, scowling, he gripped her with both hands and held her tight in place.

"Draco, let me go," she managed saying in a whiny voice.

"No," he barked. "Scared again of falling for the bad Draco Malfoy? I thought we'd been over this point. How about you validate your feelings? Why can't you give it time to see how it develops? What do you want me to do to prove it? Shower you in roses every day? I have the money to do that, just say the word. That would go nicely with your natural scent," he chuckled humourlessly.

When she looked up shocked, because he had mentioned the roses she had thought about, he saw it. Written in her shocked face, in her usually warm brown eyes, now scared looking like a rabbit too far from its burrow with the fox coming, was the fear of missing out on life. Hermione Granger was tired of living her life for the greater good. As exciting as the adjuncted magic had been so far, she wanted something for herself. She wanted to live. She had given up a part of her childhood to go on a quest with Harry Potter and even though she had done it to save her own world, she had done it also because it was required. She'd been responsible. She had to help Potter; she couldn't have not done it, it was who she was. But now, with the danger gone, she wanted something for herself. She wanted romance, especially in light of her last failed relationship, and bubbling feelings and being a girl and just feel and be, to validate herself and her feelings. Just like every other girl. He swallowed. Holy cow.

"Yes, you do," he answered his own question. Hermione looked down and bit her lip. "That's exactly what you want." When once more she didn't answer, neither confirming nor denying it, he groaned: "Granger."

When she looked up sheepishly, a very uncharacteristic look for Hermione Granger, he groaned some more: "Really? Chocolates and roses and gifts and dinner? Really? I thought you were above such daft things." He raised his face to heavens.

Perhaps with divine intervention, but Draco Malfoy realized that he had to give at one point. What he had told Hermione, that she had to claim something because she deserved it, applied as well to him. He had to give her something. He couldn't just continue to be Draco Malfoy who demanded and received things and people served on a silver platter. He had to work for once in his life. He had to give Hermione romance. And mean it. Bloody hell.

When he looked down again, he saw Hermione looking over to the window, away from him, her eyes swimming in tears. It hurt a bit. She was connected and therefore stuck with him and it took away her freedom to find a partner who would woo her till the cows came home. She was Hermione Granger, the lauded war heroine; there was certainly more than one guy out there, who would love to make her his princess, Draco admitted grudgingly. But she was stuck with him and even though (incredibly) she had found it in her to love him, he hadn't even considered giving her what he did for every other woman he had dated. Because she was so different. It wrenched his guts a bit.

Looking around her bedroom, he saw a tissue box on her nightstand. He grabbed it, plucked one tissue from the box and pushed the box toward her.

"Here," he said. When Hermione turned to grab it, he had transformed the one plucked tissue into a yellow rose and put it on top of the box. When she looked incredulous at the single flower, he grinned sheepishly and shrugged: "For starters."

Hermione pulled a tissue, cleaned her nose, and then plucked up the rose. "Thank you," she said, her voice clogged from her tears.

She gave him a small smile. Draco knew women well enough to know that the rose appeased her for the moment but was far from what she expected. He would have to go the whole nine yards eventually.

Regarding the still sad Hermione, he remembered the ring he had taken from the manor. "Wait. I've got something for you." Jumping off the bed, he grabbed his trousers and fished something out of his pocket. After he'd crawled back on the bed, he held out a small silver ring with an oval blue stone, intricately set. Just the change from the light from the edge of the bed to the middle of it, changed the blue in the stone. Hermione had never seen anything like it but then, she hadn't seen much magical jewellery. Wanting to take it from him, she whispered: "For me?"

He didn't let her take it just like that. He took her right hand and let the ring glide on her ring finger. "Yes. I took it with me when we went to see my mother."

"It's a Malfoy ring?" Hermione asked breathlessly.

He shrugged. "We have gazillion pieces of Malfoy jewellery but I thought you would like this one, because the blue changes." Hell, this was nothing to throwing gifts to the female sharks who had been scouring the waters to dig him. It was so much harder to give to somebody who really deserved it. You always felt it was not enough, what you gave. Draco Malfoy had never in his life felt as minimal as he felt right that moment, when he looked at Hermione staring at her ring in wonder. Humbled.

Until Hermione threw herself around his neck and him over and they tumbled backwards on her bed.

"Uff, Granger. Careful, you're squishing me," he huffed through a mouthful of brown curly hair. Spitting, he endured Hermione's exuberant kisses all over his face until he got all hair out. Just then, Hermione turned his head and kissed him full on his mouth. Tasting the familiar feeling, he relaxed into it. Oh, thank Merlin, she liked it. After a while he rolled her off his stomach and halfway under him and continued the kissing which turned into serious snogging.

When he broke the lip contact in dire need of air to breathe, he looked into Hermione's beaming face, her eyes alight with joy, her lips stretched wide over her perfect teeth. She giggled joyously and her joy was contagious. Draco gave her another kiss and smiled a genuine smile.

"You like it, I suppose?"

"Yes," she laughed. "Yes, I like it. Thank you."

He rolled back over and tugged her into his chest and just held her there. "You're welcome," he mumbled, kissing her forehead. For a few minutes he just savoured the feeling of giving joy. Hermione exuded joy and he was bathed in it. He couldn't believe that he'd never seen before how pleasant it was.

After a few quiet minutes, Hermione said: "Draco?"

Ripped out of his thought of the pleasure of giving joy, he said: "What, Granger?"

"How come you can always jolt me out of my constantly busy mind and it's so liberating?"

He sighed. "Because I'm your perfect match, Granger." When she didn't reply, he added: "Perhaps you need to rethink what you consider perfect. And the validity of emotions."

She hmm'd. "You may be right."

He scoffed. "Of course, I am." And then he bend over her again and pressed his lips to hers until he felt her lips become as pliable and responding as he liked them best. He detached his lips once for a little and panted: "Just … stop rationalizing and fucking feel it." And then he kissed her and caressed her magic until the feeling exploded in her and she literally couldn't think straight anymore.

Needless to say the nap never happened.

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_A/N: If you wonder, why this constant back and forth, think of it as the cold feet one gets the morning of the wedding. You know, you are marrying the one man you want to spend your life with and yet, just before you seal the deal, you wonder if there isn't a better one out there. Or if you can live forever with the way he brushes his teeth or holds his fork or that he never brings you flowers or the way his eyebrows grow or whatever._

_I had to bring some more information in (so, I won't have to squeeze it all in one chapter) and this little scene developed. I like the way it goes but I can understand if somebody says "Enough already with the constant back and forth, back and forth." Keep in mind, it's just not natural for them and there are some things that need to be brought out in the open because they weren't friends before. Sometimes, they are overwhelmed by the emotions, and sometimes, their situation gives them hiccups and belly aches._

_The party is next._


	36. Party

_A/N: I'm starting to forget to put the warnings on the chapters because there is something in almost all chapters. But this one is smut free, pretty much. _

_And the credits: Edwardloverx3 (here's more Theo), lizzmalfoy, scv914, gryff-slytherin, and Anon, thank you all. My heart always does a little pitter-patter when I see an email that says "Review alert"._

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**Chapter 29: Party**

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Some hours later, Draco was guiding Hermione through a long corridor full of ancient ancestor paintings, which were hissing insults at her, toward the party room in the Zabini mansion. Once again the conversation stopped, when they entered the room together.

Draco was confident that he had dressed Hermione appropriately. He had found a black linen blouse in her wardrobe that he had transformed into a belted linen tunic. With some white flares on her long legs below, she looked positively appetizing. The black in her tunic gave her face a rosy glow and enhanced her dark eyes and he couldn't wait to dig into her flesh once again. Guiding her by the small of her back he dropped his hand a little lower to feel the firm roundness of her bottom in anticipation. She jumped a little but didn't move away. He smirked. Hermione wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Not even the coolness that swapped over them coming from the people present in the room would deter him. He realized that his escort turned heads, although likely for some right and some wrong reasons. He felt the jeering, the sneering and the leering likewise in the air.

He was glad that Zabini approached them. "Draco, thank Merlin, you came. Granger." He greeted her coolly.

"Zabini," she replied equally cool.

Draco put his hand around her waist and pulled her close to his front. She came with a jerk and a little twitch to her mouth. "Zabini, let's try that again. I'm sure you can give Hermione a better greeting," he snarled.

It was a sign of the intense Slytherin training that Blaise's jaw didn't drop. Try as he might, his face twitched a little. Biting the inside of his mouth, he held onto it and said somewhat more cordially through pressed lips: "Hermione Granger, what a pleasure to receive you in my house. May I introduce my fiancée, Pansy Parkinson?"

As if out of thin air, he pulled Pansy from behind his back all of a sudden to his side. Draco nodded to her.

"Pansy."

"Draco. Granger."

"Parkinson."

Each of the four eyed each other carefully, until Zabini chuckled.

"Well, now that we are all introduced, let the party begin. Granger, you may want to try the punch, it's delicious."

"Thank you, Zabini. It's green. I think, I'll start with water," Hermione replied, still a little reserved.

Blaise smirked. "Ah, Granger. It won't make you any friends if you stay sober and stay away from green all night."

Hermione smirked cheekily back. "Be that as it may, I said I start with water. I'm thirsty. I didn't say what I'll have after that, once it's satisfied."

"That's the spirit," Zabini grinned, leading her over to the drinks table.

Pansy sidled up to Draco, watching them go. "You dressed her well," she said.

"She has a lot of potential," Draco rebuked.

Pansy laughed. "I'm sure she does."

"Pansy," he warned her.

"No worries, no worries, I'll be on my best behaviour," Pansy smirked.

Watching Draco look after Hermione standing with Blaise at the drinks' buffet, she had to add: "Granger, hm?"

Draco Malfoy exhaled through his nose. "I suppose." He moved his fingers to get rid of the tension in the hand that had just touched Hermione's bottom.

Pansy nodded. "I'll have to get used to it, but I suppose it makes sense."

Draco eyed her suspiciously. "How does is make sense?"

Pansy tilted her head back and forth. "I can't quite put my finger on it but she captures you somehow. Always has. Ever since you called her mudblood. Ah, and watch my fiancé charm her."

They were watching Hermione laugh freely at something Zabini had said, and his responding grin.

"I think I'll break them up. Now that she has discovered her taste for Slytherins, I don't want her to steal my man. Blaise is no self-denier. And she looks delicious tonight," Pansy Parkinson stated.

"You do that," Draco answered her back, suppressing a growl at the thought that Zabini would snatch Granger away from him, and watched subsequently how Pansy attached herself to Blaise's arm.

While he stood to watch Granger banter with Zabini and Pansy keeping watch, more Slytherins, from his year and above, mingled up to him.

"Malfoy, what's gotten into you? A mudblood?" Derrick hissed at him.

Bole added: "You're bringing Hermione Granger, the world's most famous mudblood to Zabini's party?"

"Have you gone soft in your head?" Marsters from two years above suggested.

"Shut it," he hissed at them. "What I do in my free time is none of your concern."

Bole regarded him as if he had discovered a new species of toad in his backyard: a little fascinated but disgusted by its ugliness at the same time. "What does she have on you?"

Draco Malfoy was taken aback. Since you were never to show your true emotions in Slytherin land, he just examined his fingernails carelessly and drawled: "Care to explain?"

Bole grinned evilly. "It's clear that for you to bring her with you, she has to know something about you or your family to blackmail you with, and I wonder what that is. Has she found you somewhere playing hide the broomstick with little boys? And she must have pictures."

Draco looked at the other man as if he had just told him that the sun is hot. Very hot. Duh.

"Bole, just … that's disgusting. Has it ever occurred to you in your pea brain to ask yourself why Hermione Granger of all people could possibly want to blackmail me to take her to a Slytherin party? You think she gets a kick out of being called a mudblood?" He knew he couldn't deny Bole's assumption or it would be published as a fact in the Daily Prophet tomorrow. A counterattack was always the best way. "Just how many girls have I fucked?"

Bole shrugged. "Don't know, 25?"

"53."

Bole sneered. "Hard to keep track with so many."

Draco looked bored again. "I have an accountant. He keeps track of the gifts I'm giving out. Do you think I have time to play with boys?"

If Bole became a little uncertain, you would have only known it by the reddening of his ears. "Whatever," he said.

"I let you in on a little secret, Bole. Because you were always my favourite Big Brother, amongst all the other Big Brothers you showered with, slippery soap and all. Since you mentioned pictures," Boles left eyelid twitched a little nervously. It wasn't as if you actually needed proof: just to throw out the allegedly supported suspicion to the press sometimes was enough to ruin somebody's reputation or life. All Slytherins knew that and they lived on tricking each other into keeping the peace and quiet. Hermione would have rolled her eyes at the convolutedness of it, since you could have peace so much easier by just being nice. But where was the fun in simply living peacefully with your neighbour and sharing your apply harvest and barbecue?

Draco Malfoy stepped forward and placed his arm around Bole's shoulders as if to whisper in his ear. Although he bent to Bole's ear, he said for everybody around him: "Granger and I are adjuncted."

"Adjuncted? What does that mean?" Derrick said, finally getting a word in.

Draco gave him an indulgent smile. "For the less informed, an adjunction is when two magical energies unite and combine their powers, making the witch and/or wizards four times stronger than before."

As scrawny as he had looked at age eleven when he had started Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy was the descendent of a powerful family and he had grown into his magic and his body. He was a worthy opponent amongst Slytherins, bitingly quick, efficient, and strong, and to fight him, you would have to be well prepared. Slytherins rarely fought open duels. They rather tried to sneak spells in from behind, to save their own respective hide. But it was common knowledge that Draco Malfoy was very good at it. To hear that he had even more power now, because of some weird connection with Granger, who was undeniably powerful, was a bit disconcerting. They didn't know if he told the truth (a completely overrated concept by Slytherin standards) but they weren't quite sure if they wanted to find out.

They eyed him with raised eyebrows. He gave them his iciest glare until they shrugged and Marsters mumbled something like "Alright, then," and they moved back to their respective groups, mumbling disgusted.

'Thank you, guys. Get the rumour mills churning." Draco thought to himself curtly when he saw his adversaries retreating.

He had been hanging around Granger for too long. This power play game was ingrained into his brain waves, but at times it was so tiring to tweak information and anticipate your counterpart's next move. Feeling a little lassitude, Draco had the urge to touch Granger. Because it tingled warmly and because she felt good. Her skin was smooth as silk and velvet and it energized, and sometimes aroused, him to have his hands on it. He moved over to where she still stood with Pansy and Blaise.

The broad majority of guests remained quiet and observed. As usual. He heard a rebellious whisper or two on his way over, but none other approached him with regard to his choice of companion. Draco gave a nod in greeting to Theo and Astoria which was returned. It seemed that he still commanded some respect amongst his circles. Nobody else defied him openly.

When he reached Hermione, he put one hand in her back with an inner sigh and felt the warmth tingling up through his arm as usual, even through the cloth on her skin. He couldn't take her in his arms or go under her tunic to actually touch her skin and make a PDA for everybody else to see. Not quite yet. For something scandalous as this, Slytherins needed to be warmed up, so you had to serve information in small bites. Very small bites. But he could claim her as his with his hand on her.

They chatted with Zabini and Parkinson, telling them as well about the strength gains of the adjunction, but skirting around other things regarding their adjunction to keep it to a minimum. Hermione had been smart enough to not say anything else and let him do the talking, since he knew best which information to indulge to his peers and which to keep back. She leaned back into him and just confirmed with nodding.

While they had moved to Theo and Astoria, luckily, Granger got along with Theo so well, Pansy shared with her husband-to-be:

"Oh, for the love of Salazar, look at him. He's completely besotted with her. What did she do to him?" Pansy exclaimed in a quiet corner away from said couple to her fiancé.

Blaise chuckled. "If I didn't know better, I would say you were jealous, Pansy dear."

She huffed. "Jealous. Why would I be jealous? I'm just concerned for Draco. He always had a thing for her but the way he is now, he's not himself."

Blaise looked dubious. "He had a thing for her? How do you figure that?"

Pansy sighed. "Blaise, were you blind when we went to the Yule Ball?"

He grinned. "No, blinded, not blind. And rather busy. I didn't pay attention to the male population of Hogwarts that night, that's for sure."

Pansy grumbled. "Fine. Anyway, he couldn't take his eyes of her all night. I admit she had looked well. But Draco was unresponsive to anything that didn't concern her. Every second word was mudblood and how they shouldn't be allowed at the school and in particular not to a ball like this."

Blaise chuckled. That must have been a blow to Pansy's self-esteem. No wonder, she didn't like the golden girl.

"Why don't you ask him?"

"You know he would never tell. And it's the thing with besotted people that they deny the very fact, Blaise. You know that."

"I don't think he looks besotted. Maybe a little … tied-up with her, but then, they are magically connected." Blaise smirked over to where his mate stood with Hermione Granger, still with his hand on her as they had been while talking to him and Pansy, in a far corner of the living room of his mother's mansion. His mother was out, partying somewhere else, likely trying to secure husband number nine. Or ten. Who was counting when you actually had to use two hands?

"He can't take his hands of her. What does she give him?"

"Maybe she's good in bed. You know, Pansy, it's always the quiet ones."

Pansy, still Parkinson, soon to be Zabini, snorted delicately. "Granger, the prude Gryffindor princess? I don't think so. And she was never quiet, as such."

"Hm, Draco the Slytherin prince with the Gryffindor princess. Somehow I find that fitting." When he saw Pansy take a deep breath for an expected rant, he continued quickly: "Well, it leaves you with only one course of action. You'll have to talk it out of her." Blaise grinned at his soon-to-be wife. He couldn't wait for the day. Pansy had a mind-set that he had already admired while they had been at school. He wanted to make her his own.

"I suppose, I'll just have to do that. Wish me luck." Pansy straightened her shoulders. She would not cower while grilling the infamous Gryffindor mudblood.

"You won't need it. If anyone can do it, it'll be you." Blaise grinned. "And send Draco over to me. I want to try my own luck."

Pansy grunted in confirmation and made her way over to the corner where Draco Malfoy stood very close with Hermione Granger, apparently deep in discussion.  
>She put on her best smile before she addressed her childhood friend. "Draco, dear, Blaise wants to talk to you."<p>

It confirmed her worst suspicions when the platinum-blond Malfoy heir looked her way irritated for the interruption and then turned back to the woman at his side to ask: "Hermione?"

Pansy inhaled. "Don't worry, I'll keep her company."

Draco Malfoy sent her a suspicious glance. "That's what I was afraid of."

Pansy rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to hex her. She'd make mincemeat out of me if I tried." When he still hesitated, she urged. "Go. Unless you want to participate in girl's talk."

Draco turned to Hermione gently: "Are you going to be okay?"

Hermione Granger gave him a small smile: "Of course, I will be. What's she going to do, grab and disapparate with me? You are within sight, just on the other side of the room."

The thought of Pansy grabbing and disapparating with Hermione didn't sit well with him and his frown showed it. But knowing that she would have to face his friends at one point and stand up for herself, he simply said: "Right," right into her temple, with his lips only millimetres short of actually touching it.

When he turned and sauntered of, Hermione regarded his well-formed retreating back. She focused to the woman with her, when Pansy said: "So, Granger."

Hermione smiled the small smile again. "So, Parkinson."

"You and Draco, hm?"

"What about it, Parkinson?"

"You know, it'll be Zabini soon, better get used to it."

"Oh, does that mean I'll be going to see you frequently from now on?" Hermione huffed.

Pansy rebutted her quietly: "If you'll stay with Draco, then, yes, you will be."

Hermione sobered immediately: "Sorry." Parkinson was right. If she was going to date Draco, or even if she just worked the compow with him on friendly terms, she would have to meet his friends as well. Perhaps it wouldn't be too bad. Zabini had only been indifferent, not hostile while at Hogwarts, and she already enjoyed Theo's company. She was weary of Pansy Parkinson, though. Pansy had always appeared bitchy to her. But she would have to try, for Draco's sake. And who knew how she and her Gryffindors had appeared to them?

After a contemplative pause, Pansy added. "I wonder what he sees in you, you know."

Well, at least, she didn't beat around the bush, Parkinson did. Hermione could live with that. It was some kind of honesty. If Hermione hated anything, it was the convoluted, misleading way Slytherins talked to each other as if in code. They thought of themselves as particularly clever and expected everybody else to either understand them or piss off. It wasn't that she didn't understand them but it was so tiring to find meaning behind their snide remarks. She snorted. "Why don't you ask him?"

Pansy waved her hand dismissively. "He would never tell. That's why I'm asking you."

Hermione smiled grimly. "I'm not telling either. It's not my place to tell."

Pansy eyed her sharply. "Oh, but it is, Granger. The way I see it, from observing him, I think he is head over heels for you and that has never happened with Draco before. So, you must have done something to him and I wonder what that was."

Hermione snorted again and turned away to look out the window. Another one who couldn't believe that Draco could simply be attracted to something in her, Merlin forbid. No, she would have had to bewitch him.

"If you think, I put him literally under my spell, go and check for the traces of my magic. You won't find any, because there are none."

Pansy chuckled. "But your magic is all over him. You could have snugged a little spell in."

Hermione shook her head. "I'm not a Slytherin. I don't bewitch men to like me. I wait for the one who does it naturally."

This time Pansy snorted. "We don't bewitch them either. We just stage ourselves to our best advantage under any given circumstances."

"And tweak the circumstances," Hermione huffed.

"Perhaps," Pansy conceded grinning. Hermione felt the corners of her mouth pull up a little. But it was a short lived moment.

"Draco hates being manipulated. If you set yourself up to your best advantage, he would see right through it and feel manipulated. Why didn't you wait if he found something in you that he liked?"

Pansy rolled her eyes. "But that could have taken forever. And what if he didn't find anything to his liking?"

"Then it wouldn't have been right to have him."

Pansy smirked. "Ah, see, Granger, that's where we disagree. We Slytherin women, we take the man we want, keep him entertained and don't wait."

Hermione nodded. "I see. And you would have taken a man who realized at one point that he has been manipulated and got the cat in the sack and despised you for it. And he would scream in betrayal and blame you for the mess he was in. How lovely."

She focused on Pansy who had gone pale while staring in the same direction as Hermione, out the window, realizing what Hermione meant. Lack of brain had never been Pansy's problem. Hermione really took in this girl who had gone to school with her. Pug-faced or not, Pansy's dark hair and pale skin made her look a little like Snow white. Ambition glittered in her sapphire blue eyes but Hermione couldn't blame her for that. She suspected that was how Slytherin girls were raised. It made sense, therefore, if this was what he got from all pureblood girls, that Draco had been enthralled by a woman who didn't fall for his "I'm the Malfoy heir" tune and tried to better her social standing through a match with him. She said as much.

"Perhaps that is exactly the reason why Draco is with me. Perhaps he felt he'd seen enough lies, being who he is, with women out trying to catch and capture him. I would actually be happier if he wasn't the Malfoy heir. It makes things very complicated."

Pansy kept silent for a long minute. Then, trying to recover some good about her house, she said quietly: "We look out for our own as well, you know."

Hermione snorted once more. "If that was the case, you wouldn't have let him suffer as he did in sixth year."

Pansy huffed. "I watched his suffering, watching over him, observing him if I could help. But there was nothing I could have done. It was his doing, the suffering," she said. "And you seemed to be doing an admirable job," she added with a smirk.

Hermione twitched in alarm. "You knew?"

Pansy sneered. "I watched him every second of every day, when possible. Why do you think I clung to him like a pest?"

"To shag him, to capture him, to make him marry you?" Hermione growled.

Pansy barked a laugh. "Yes, we shagged, improving our skills, getting it out of our systems. But that was all we ever did. Somewhat like friends with benefits. We could have never fallen in love, just like you and Potter. But we would have made a great couple. He is so powerful. With my support, he could have become the next Dark Lord."

Hermione snarled. "I know all about his powers. I share them, remember? But you would have smothered him in the process. This clearly shows that you know nothing about Draco. Oh, yes, he is powerful and he would have had the ability, but it would have killed him to be anything like a Dark Overlord. From the inside out."

Pansy regarded Hermione Granger's grimace thoughtfully. It was a painful grimace, imagining pain from a development that would kill all humanity within yourself because of what you were doing.

"You really love him, do you?" Pansy said, struck by the wave of emotions swapping over from the Gryffindor.

"I wouldn't know why it was any of your concern." Hermione mumbled. "And why I should tell you of all people."

Pansy laughed quietly. "I saw you, you know?"

Hermione huffed. "And what exactly did you see?"

Pansy scrutinised the golden Gryffindor next to her. "I saw him meet you in the hallways. And even though I didn't hear what you said and didn't know what had happened before, it was clear from the way he stood that he was not indifferent. And certainly not as repelled as he should have been. And I saw him, sitting at your bedside at St. Mungo's, desperate for you to regain consciousness."

"Yeah, well, that's history."

Pansy shook her head. "History in the making. You two will make history with your powers."

"We'll see," Hermione hedged.

Pansy straightened up. "Yes, we will."

When Hermione preferred to keep silent, Pansy carried on to the other topic that was still burning on her tongue: "So, you're adjuncted, hm?"

"Yes, we've already told you." Hermione confirmed shortly.

Pansy nodded. "Maybe it makes sense, in the grand scheme of things, to have a pureblood and a muggleborn connected. After all the rubbish with the Dark Lord, perhaps it'll help the healing. A Malfoy of all people." She shook her head in thought.

When Hermione's head came up to regard her, because Pansy had intuitively picked up a very important dimension of opposites, she added ruefully: "I'm sorry for wanting to hand Potter over, the day of the final battle."

Hermione snorted once more: "You should apologize to Harry, not to me."

When Pansy nodded bashfully, Hermione added: "If you don't want people to see you as a bitchy backstabber, you should stop doing it, the bitching and the backstabbing. Find a better use for your time. Brains enough you have."

Pansy inhaled deeply but before she could reply anything, Astoria materialized at her side and said: "Pansy, leave."

Sending one dark look at Astoria, Pansy shrugged and with a cheeky grin she said "See you around, Granger. Nice ring", and moved on.

Hermione eyed the next candidate in the game "Let's grill Granger, since we have her here for once" with caution. What did Astoria want? She didn't let her in the dark for too long. With one glance at Hermione's right hand and the ring there, she blurted out: "A ring? He gave you…" Hermione hid her hand in the crook of her folded arms, not wanting to provoke the other girl further. She was on Slytherin territory, after all.

A glimmer of realization in her blue eyes, Astoria's face darkened when she growled: "What do you have with Theo?"

One more snort later, Hermione said exasperatedly: "Nothing. We snogged in the library once or twice. It's long past."

Astoria eyed her sceptically: "You never slept with him?"

"Like you and Draco, you mean?" Hermione couldn't keep the jealous anger out of her voice entirely, but shook her head. "No."

Astoria laughed lightly. "Ah, but Draco and I were engaged. You were just a passing fling to Theo."

Hermione growled. How dared she? "How would you know? Perhaps I didn't want to pursue it any further."

Astoria accepted it with a nod. "Good. Keep it that way. He's mine, you know."

Hermione could have howled laughing. Damn Slytherins and their power games. It was so mind-boggling and so unnecessary. "Yes, I know. He chose you. Not over me, the way Draco chose me over you, way before you got engaged, but Theo chose you, and that's all fine and dandy. Be good to him, alright? He's a good guy."

Astoria snorted. She might have been offended but she wasn't stupid. She understood that she had provoked the blatant disrespect. Hermione Granger didn't want to play intricate mind games. She could, but she didn't want to. "Likewise. Be good to Draco. He has needs."

Hermione barked one laugh. "That he does, alright."

Astoria huffed. "Makes sense that you figured that out already."

"Well, at times, it pays off to be the smartest witch of our age," Hermione grinned.

Astoria grinned as well. It felt good at times to be just open and honest. "Smartness has nothing to do with it. But from what I saw at lunch time, you had a good handle on the situation."

Hermione's grin turned into a solid smirk. "On the contrary, smartness has everything to do with it. And I "handle" situations well in general."

Now Astoria laughed.

She had a nice laugh, Astoria did. And it would have been nice to just watch her laughing, a Slytherin girl with a Gryffindor girl, if not the degrees in the room had gotten a few degrees clammier with the late arrival of new guests.

At the same time while Hermione had talked to Pansy and then Astoria, a similar game called "Are you out of your mind, and if not, tell us immediately what's going on, Draco" was played on the other side of the room.

Seeing Draco approach hesitantly when Pansy had sent him over, Zabini greeted his friend with "Draco, my man, I knew you were attracted to her but girlfriend? What's wrong with simple shagging?" as soon as Draco had almost reached his side. A remark that made Draco stop in his tracks. He had dreaded this conversation. It was a sign of his friends' absolute bafflement that they didn't even bother with any polite verbiage.

Theo next to Blaise just smirked. He was the only one who had already seen Draco and Granger "interacting" together. But he was equally curious for better explanations. Next to Theo stood Gregory Goyle and looked as unconcerned as his boulder-like self had always projected. A petite blond was attached to his side and he had his arm slung over her shoulder. She was drowning a bit against Goyle's massive shoulder, but her alert eyes showed good humour. Her eyes widened at seeing another attractive member of Goyle's circle of friends coming to join them but she cuddled into Goyle's arm to show her place.

Draco said: "Goyle" with a nod in greeting.

Goyle took up the cue and nodded to him, saying: "Draco. This is Kaitlin. She works at the café across from my place. We got talking."

Draco nodded to the girl in question but remained mute otherwise. Goyle got the hint. He turned away with the girl in his arm and motioned to her: "Let's get a drink. There's gonna be man's talk and you don't want to hear it." With a nod to his friends, he said: "Later, guys," and trotted off.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Zabini cast a _Muffliato_ and urged his friend: "Alright, Draco, spill."

"Zabini," Draco whined.

"Oh, come on, Draco. You can't just bring her here and not tell me how she ended up as your girlfriend. Does she go down on you? Can she do the cowgirl ride? Does she scream?"

Draco just shook his head. "I never said girlfriend." Easing into it was the key word. To start off with "girlfriend" was sure to raise more protest.

Theo took the heavy load of spilling his guts of his friend with a leading question. "What does being adjuncted mean, Draco? Except for the strength gain, that is," he asked quietly.

After a sigh, Draco replied equally quiet: "It means that our magic is equally strong and that the magic itself chose us to create something magical together. We are stronger when together, which is almost unnecessary because she is one bloody powerful witch, but we also feel connected through the adjunction. It's not that I can feel each and every one of her thoughts or whimsies. But I can feel the magic in her and how it reflects her mood and anticipate the way it is going, how she is shaping it and where she is sending it. And she can feel the same in me."

He didn't need to tell them each technical detail right away. There was time for it later. He needed to give them an overview of what the connection with Granger gave him and did to him, though. They were his best mates. A little embarrassed to have to admit to so much "feeling" with regards to Granger, he couldn't look his friends straight in the faces and so he let his gaze drift over their heads. Once again, watching the light reflect in the chandelier of the room, he thought that in the isolation over the last few days it had been enjoyable to share intimacy. But in the light of day, scrutinized by people in their lives, it didn't look quite as cosy as it used to do, their connection. He understood Hermione's insecurity from the afternoon better, in that moment. She had anticipated this.

They were two people who had never, and if not for their adjunction, would have never shared their lives. Through their connection and their constant closeness, they had developed feelings but would they be able to match their lives together? Would Hermione ever feel comfortable in the company of his friends and his family? Would he always have to bite his tongue when meeting with the weasel and her other friends? Would they have to seclude themselves somewhere? And what when they got tired of the shagging? What else was there, separated from their regular lives, without friends and family?

He bit his lip. It wasn't quite as bleak as these doubtful thoughts painted. She already knew a few of his friends and she got along with them, Theo and Zabini. He, himself could stand being in the same room as Potter and the Weas.., Ginny, so, there. Some Weasleys were quite okay, like the remaining twin of the pranksters. At least, they were all Quidditch players and he had a topic of conversation.

And they would spend more time in the near future to further explore their compow and everything could develop slowly from there. Like a dating couple. He would take her out to dinner and send her flowers. They would do things together, the way normal couples did before they decided how they wanted to spend their lives together. There would be fights, but that was normal. They had the advantage that they already felt deeply connected, even if it was still very fresh. They didn't have to make any lasting decisions right away. Perhaps the deep feelings evened out at one point and they were free to pursue other love partners?

It clenched in his chest, hard. No. Perhaps that was out of the question. And that was okay. For the time being in any case.

Surfacing out of his deep thoughts, he saw his friends grinning at him.

"What?" he snarled, irritated. He just saw Theo and Zabini exchange one amused look, then they faced him again.

"Thinking about her?" Zabini grinned.

Theo snickered. "I've never seen you so far away, Draco. Goodness, but you've got it bad."

"Don't know what you're talking about," he growled annoyed.

Blaise patted his shoulder. "No worries, my friend. Everybody deserves to be in love at one point. Enjoy it while it lasts. At least, she can appreciate my humour. Pansy is still working on that." He turned toward the buffet tables. "Hm, it seems the punch is gone. I'll go and refill it."

Theo stayed, looking at his grumpy friend. "Draco, she's pure gold. If she feels for you and you feel for her, by all means, take it."

Draco's head whipped to his mate. He and Theo had shared many things as boys growing up, but girl woes they had kept to a minimum. "How do you know?"

Theo rolled his eyes. "Come on, you know how she is, how fierce. And you know that I kissed Granger. I'm sure you dragged it out of her. If she's halfway as good as she kisses and combined with her fierceness, well, …" He didn't finish his sentence.

Draco growled again. To imagine that Theo and Granger…; and after he felt her nervousness today when Theo stood so close to her. He gripped Theo's arm.

Theo held his hands up defensively. "Mate, nothing ever happened but kissing. And a little groping. Over the clothes. And if you let me go, I'll tell you why."

Draco let him go reluctantly but stood directly in his face. Theo brushed off his arm, where Draco had held him, and looked straight back at his friend. "You want to know why nothing happened between me and Granger?"

"Spit it out already," Draco snarled.

Theo nodded. "Because she was already attached. I thought at the time, she was attached to Potter, and she just wanted to experiment a little, you know? Tinker with the bad guys, see your worth, get a little experience, see how far you can go, and so on. She was tempting, the Gryffindor golden girl. We all thought she was Potter's or the weasel's girl, and that they were deranged because neither one ever touched her in public. Little did we know, until Potter started going out with the Weaselette, but we so wanted to get one over on him. And I wanted to see if there was a girl behind all this teasing braininess. But there was something in her, like a magical barrier, and the deeper I got with the kissing, the more it pushed me back. I think, she liked it and she would have liked to do more, but it just felt wrong. I couldn't even get my hands under her jumper. It wouldn't budge."

Draco eyed his friend incredulously. Granger had said that kissing Theo had been after their run-in in the classroom. A magical barrier? Was it a part of the adjunction magic to exclude certain other potentials?

He chuckled. Okay, Theo was out. Draco felt like doing a little conga. Magically determined or not, it felt good to be chosen to be the right man for Granger, and not Theo. Finally, he was the right man for something.

Theo regarded him curiously. "What's so funny?"

Draco chuckled again. "Looks like I got there first. We figure that the magic selected us way before our adjunction. So, whatever you have felt pushing you back when you kissed Granger, was the magic, I figure. She was already destined for me."

Theo raised an eyebrow. "Well, I got to kiss her first, didn't I?"

Draco smirked and quirked an identical eyebrow. "I got to your wife-to-be first, legally, want to continue?"

Theo paled. "You did..?"

Draco shook his head. "No, I was not her first, if that's what you mean. Why don't you ask her? You didn't really think, she was a virgin, did you?"

Theo shook his head. "No. But as pissing contests go, that would have been devastating." Then he chuckled. "Looks like you're one up."

Draco grinned. "Yep. The next piss is on me."

Theo grinned back. "I'll take you up on it. Let's …"

He wasn't able to finish his sentence because the degrees in the room had just gone down quite a bit and the cold was of the kind that seeps into your bones.

When Draco Malfoy noticed Flint and Pucey in the doorway, he felt lead plummet in his stomach. Ice cold lead, to be exact. Not a particular pleasant feeling. Flint, he thought. And Pucey. Oh, no. Of all the bloody bastards to show up. He really didn't need this. He had survived being tortured by the Dark Lord or his helpers, taken immeasurable pain, but he couldn't stomach two guys who had played Quidditch with him. Pathetic. Granger, where was Granger?

He instinctively searched out Hermione, who still stood with Astoria over at the French doors, apparently in a light conversation because they were laughing. As soon as he looked over her way, she looked to him. Of course, she had noticed the change in the air as well.

Being so far away from her worried him. Their strength still stood, so he wasn't concerned that she wouldn't be able to defend herself, but he would have rather liked her closer. He needed Granger to calm him. Blast.

"Well, well, well," Flint said, strutting into the room.

Sensing more than seeing Draco's irritation in his to others placid face, Hermione tried to make her way over to him quickly. Plus she felt better to be right next to him. Covering someone else's back with your own was an honourable way of battle, in case it came to that. And Draco's worry certainly indicated the probability, that yes, it could come to that.

She didn't make it, because Flint stepped into the middle of the room, cutting her path off, and Draco felt sweat break out in his neck. Fuck!

Flint ignored Hermione for the moment, capturing the attention of the room. "We just heard the biggest news. Our Drakie here has entangled himself with a mudblood," Flint sneered as a way of greeting.

Everybody in the room froze at once and Draco felt their gazes locked on him and Flint, mesmerized at what was going to be the spectacle they had all been waiting for. He could hear their thoughts churning: somebody had to do something about Malfoy appearing with the mudblood. Just not them. Right? Right. Fuck again. Get over here, Granger.

He wasn't surprised, they had already found out. He knew how fast word got around. That's why he had to take action immediately this morning. He'd been friends with Pansy for a long time, he knew how gossip worked. He exchanged a glance with Hermione around Flint and Pucey standing between them. His raised eyebrow said as much as 'see how fast the gossip travels?' She replied with a shrug, meaning 'Yes, I see.', but worried her lip when she saw something develop in his eyes, she wasn't sure she'd ever seen before. Intense dislike and disgust was the worst Draco had ever shown toward Ron and Harry and her. She'd never seen real hate in his steel grey eyes.

"And he means business because he introduced her to his family," Pucey added in his nasal voice.

"And he's connected to her. Magically." Flint strutted a few steps until he stood directly in front of Draco. "Did she entrap you?" he said in a baby voice that reminded uncomfortably of Bellatrix Lestrange. "Are you too stupid to watch your own back? Did you let yourself be tricked by a little mudblood?" Draco kept his gaze sternly fixed on Flint without blinking, as Slytherins had been trained to do since they were in their cribs. To look away was a sign of weakness. Don't swallow, Draco, old man, he talked to himself. He probably can already smell your sweat but for all that's holy, don't swallow. It was difficult because flashes of memories of a yellow dress and straw moving rhythmically invaded his mind and dried his throat from unusual heat.

Hermione used the fact that they were focusing on Draco to walk closer until she didn't feel so awfully stretched anymore. For some reason, Draco felt particularly tense around Flint and Pucey, which was strange. Hadn't they played Quidditch together for Merlin knew how long? Weren't they Death Eater buddies? But Hermione received his annoyance loud and clear. His magic clenching and vibrating while his body remained quite unaffected to the outside eye had never happened before.

"Yeah, don't tell us crap like it's on the Dark Lord's order or some such rubbish. The Dark Lord is dead. That leaves only one option: you like being connected to her." Pucey piped up a few steps behind his apparent leader.

"So, what if I do? We adjuncted, there is nothing we could have done against it," Draco replied darkly, and was glad that his voice didn't show that his throat was drier than a salt lake.

The collective intake of breath from the few who hadn't received this piece of surprising news yet was cut short when the two opposing young men laughed crudely. The mumbling that had just started stopped immediately again, because nobody wanted to miss a word Flint was saying.

"Adjuncted. Is that the new code for "I want to shag a mudblood because she screams so nicely and I don't care if she is beneath me or not"?" Pucey jeered.

"Malfoy, going soft. How dare you bring a mudblood into our midst?" Flint spat.

Pucey frowned. "It's unnatural to be attracted to a mudblood, Malfoy, don't you know that? Have you gone mad?"

"Or is she supposed to be the fun for tonight? I'll have the first go, I'm the oldest," Flint bragged, mistakenly, and grabbed his crotch.

Draco Malfoy growled, suppressing a shudder. No! They would not touch Hermione. Never! Just to imagine … "You are contradicting yourself, Flint," he growled again.

Hermione had seen his suppressed shudder and it worried her. Flint and Pucey couldn't see it, but Malfoy slipped slowly but surely into the high alert range. She could already hear alarms going off. "Danger. Overload."

Sensing an escalation as well, Theo came over and put a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Draco," he said calmly.

Flint ignored Malfoy's comment about contradiction and continued to rile him up. He tilted his head and said with a sly smile: "Not for everybody? Did Malfoy really bring her here as his guest? My, she must be good in the sack, then. I'd like to try a hot pussy like that." Flint made a crude grimace, jeering, and moved his hips suggestively.

Shaking. His hands were shaking. Bloody hell, Malfoy. Take a deep breath and calm yourself. What's wrong with you? Another flash of white freckled skin and an inhuman scream made his heart rate go further up, so that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. And he felt sweat appear on his upper lip. Oh, Merlin, no, he was losing it.

"Flint," Theo barked, feeling Malfoy twitch and tense under his hands.

Flint turned to Nott. "Ah, you too. Were you able to put your pecker away with her as well? Don't even mind that she helped putting away your father? Well, if she's been around so much, I believe it's my turn." He half turned to where Hermione stood about two meters behind him and took two steps to her but couldn't quite go further. He stretched his hand out to grab her, but mystically, his hand stopped a foot short of Hermione's arm, blocked.

Blaise stepped forward as well. The air in the room was thick for cutting and he wasn't having it in his house. "That's enough, Flint. I believe you cut your stay short. Thanks for coming, but don't come back before next year. Pucey," said Blaise, nodding toward the two men.

Flint raised himself to his full height, which made him half a head taller than Blaise, and Blaise was no small man. "You want to keep us from putting a mudblood in its right place? Hm? I'll remember your face when the time comes, Zabini."

Draco snarled as a way to regain his composure. Morgana, how was he going to get out of this without punching their faces in and embarrass himself as the only pureblood to ever brawl in public with his fists?

"Ah, our little Malfoy wants to keep his toy for himself." Flint waved a finger at him. "Well, now, you've got to learn how to share with your betters. You know why I let you on the team, don't you? There would have been a snowballs chance in hell if your Daddy hadn't stepped in. Wouldn't there, Pucey?" Pucey confirmed it with a vehement nod. Lackey, Hermione thought.

But he got to Malfoy. She knew how sensitive Draco was on that particular point and Flint abused it mercilessly. Draco was close to snapping and who knew what would happen when he lost control over the immense magic he was holding. Hermione felt his metabolic uproar, because it rattled his magic, and it clanged against the compow. When she felt an explosion building up in Draco's guts, she started reverberating in her mind, wanting him to feel it, to calm him: It's not true, Draco, you know he's lying, hell, I can see that he's lying, he was lucky to get a good seeker with new brooms and he almost pissed his pants in joy.

She must have said the last part out loud, because all heads turned to her.

"Is that true, little mudblood? You think I'm lying?" Flint jeered at her.

Oh, well. At least it took the focus of Draco for a second. Hermione squared her chin. She was not afraid. She had fought older wizards than these when she had been much younger. Would the other Slytherins join in, against her and Draco? She didn't think so. Zabini would put his foot down and Theo would certainly not fight her. "Yes, I think you are lying. I think you've been very lucky to get such an excellent seeker on your team and new brooms on top of it, for everyone. Just because he always lost to Harry doesn't mean he's no good. Your team didn't always loose, did it? And I believe that you almost sullied your pants in excitement when you heard of your luck."

For a very brief moment, Draco looked at her surprised, hearing her praise his Quidditch abilities, and she gave him an encouraging smile. But Flint made it impossible to stay poised with his next words, and the building pressure inside of Draco had not been appeased.

Flint grinned maliciously into Hermione's face: "Ah, Malfoy, defended by Potter's whore, how low can you sink? And one who can't even fly a broom and apparently has no clue what she's talking about." There were a few protesting murmurs from the crowd. Draco had been a good seeker. But the protest again was short lived because Flint stepped forward and came very close to Hermione's face in a very threatening way. This time Hermione didn't block him. There were other ways to stop him if need be. "You think he's a good flyer?"

Hermione huffed. "Yes, I absolutely think he is. Are you hard of hearing, Flint? And you should do something about your dental hygiene. A regular _Scourgify _for starters would do the trick. But there are also very simple things called toothbrushes." She waved her hand in the air in front of her face and wrinkled her nose.

Flint came even closer, trying to be intimidating in her face. It probably would have worked if he had a weak damsel in distress in front of him, but Hermione was anything but. She might have had a weak spot for certain Slytherins, but Flint was not one of them.

"Feisty. I like that. Reminds me of someone I had before." He paused ominously before he spoke to Draco again, not taking his gaze away from Hermione.

"You remember the little red head that we had one day? The one with the yellow sundress? Oh, she was delicious. The way she screamed." Pucey snickered at Flint's word.

Draco stiffened. If anything, Hermione felt that was even worse than the angry vibration before. It made Draco poised as if ready for a jump. Unaware of the danger he was in, Flint put one more on top and turned back to stand in front of Draco, who was still trying to keep his Slytherin cool but failed miserably. His face was a little rosy, quite different from his usually pale complexion.

"Do you know, Draco, what I would do first?"

Draco couldn't hold it back anymore. The whole memory had come flushing his mind, and with it all the sensations and emotions from that time. The screaming he heard, the stench of sweat and blood, the utter brutality he saw, the nausea he felt, the bitter taste in his mouth from his own helplessness. Helpless. He was always helpless. And a coward. He was a coward because he never fought against his helplessness. He always had to suffer one or another's whims, his father's, Voldemort's, his followers', Bellatrix'. And he had never been strong enough to fight against it. Granger was strong and brave and he couldn't be a coward. A never before felt fury came over him, over this terrible feeling of helplessness that he had always endured. It blackened out the room, this fury, and only left a focus in the middle, like a funnel. And Flint stood right in it.

Well, he wasn't helpless anymore, was he?

When he received no reaction from Malfoy, Flint searched out Draco's eyes that he had stoically kept directed on Flint in an unfocused bored way. When he caught them and had his full attention, Flint continued in a whisper that carried across the room.

"Do you remember what I did to her? This would go the same way with the mudblood. Rrrrripping." Flint enjoyed his torture. Hermione put his remarks together and felt her fingers go cold. Was he alluding to a rape he had done? And the way he was speaking, had Draco been there to either witness or be forced to participate?

Hermione could feel renewed Draco's magic clenching and vibrating around him. Draco was losing his control. Hermione stemmed her magic up against his to calm him but he didn't react. This was the first time ever her partner was so shaken up. It must have been horrible for him. She knew, raping a girl was nothing Draco would have ever done if not forced. She'd seen it in the classroom, nobody could be that good an actor, the way he had suffered knowing he would have to take a girl by force in a revel. This was something he could never find pleasure in. Unlike the sick, sadistic pig in front of him.

And then, Draco Malfoy had reached his breaking point. He snapped. With a snarl he unleashed the power given to him and without taking his wand in hand, Flint and Pucey flew across the room in a flash of blue light and against the opposing wall with an unhealthy crunch. Theo who had been close to Draco, still holding down his shoulder, flew to the side and onto his backside from the backlash and skidded a few yards backwards, hitting Zabini in the kneecaps. Zabini fell over, back into the watching crowd, but was back up in seconds.

Flint and Pucey just shook their heads and glided of the wall. They landed on their feet and drew their wands before they had hit the ground. Aimed at Draco, a double flash of red light flew toward him and impacted in a transparent but purple-bluish tinted cloud appearing around him. Flint and Pucey were a bit appalled that their jinxes hadn't made it to their intended target but they were battle proved enough to send the next ones right after. It had about the same effect. Draco caught the spells in his magic like a baseball in a pitchers glove and crushed them to energetic dust.

And then he got them back. Within split seconds, his wand finally drawn, he sent out a _Levicorpus_ and secured the two wizards hanging in the middle of the room. But he didn't stop there. Talking about crushing, what could have been an easy end with an _Expelliarmus_, an _Incarcerous_, and a _Silencio_, Draco didn't want to take the easy way out. Darkness clouded his mind and with pure intention and a barely thought _Opprimo _he crunched Flint and Pucey as if in a full-body vice. These two wizards were the scum of the earth, the lowliest creatures imaginable, and he was going to crush them for good, like you would crush a mosquito between your thumb and fingers.

Horrified, Hermione had watched the switch in Draco. She had come to know him as a fairly controlled but passionate man. All control gone, she felt his intent through their magic, the spell building up in him. Watching him securing his opponents had been alright, she hadn't needed to interfere. But she couldn't stand by, when he was going to maim them.

"Draco, stop" she yelled.

Flint and Pucey, already red in the face from hanging upside down, started to squirm uncomfortably when the pressure built on them. They tried to free themselves or to send out some more spells at Draco, to no avail. All of them were sucked up into his magic where they disintegrated and were spat out as little flashes of light.

"Malfoy, what the fuck, are you doing? I was only joking. Get us down this instant, you bloody little bugger," Flint yelled and then screamed as the pressure increased.

Wrong. Very wrong.

"Too late, Flint," Draco whispered and increased the pressure.

Hermione sped forward as if fired from a bow. "Noooo, Draco. No."

When she reached her counterpart, she jumped against his chest. Draco Malfoy stumbled for a split second, grabbing her wrists to soften her impact, and the hanging wizards were able to take a quick breath when his concentration broke for a second, but then the pressure was back on.

"No, Draco, don't. Let them down."

She threw out an _Incarcerous_ and an _Expelliarmus_ backwards and grabbed Draco's hands back.

"See, they're already bound and disarmed. They can't do anything anymore. Just let them down." Their wands in their hands, her right, his left, crossed and a sizzle shot through the air.

"Granger, let me at them," Malfoy snarled at the slim girl in front of him.

"No. You can't do that. No Bellatrix. You can't injure a captured man. You are so much stronger. Be responsible."

Malfoy snarled in frustration.

"Ah, Granger, you are no fun."

Leave it to Granger to be the voice of reason. He might have actually listened to her, had not Flint in his stupidity opened his mouth again. Flint had always gotten his way. He was not going to take it lying down that the little fag Malfoy had overwhelmed him magically.

"What do you say, Pucey, should we have let Malfoy participate with the little red head? He seemed a bit young but then, maybe he wouldn't have become as faggy as he is now. A good fuck might have set him straight, perhaps?"

He was quieted by a whip of light across his face like a slap, and it left a gash. Flint howled in pain and in surprise. Pucey was prevented from answering beyond the whimpering he only did anyway, when several more flashes of spells hit them with cruel precision where it hurt the most: the face, the back of the knees and thighs, the butt, the neck, the loin. The tied up wizards howled out their pain and writhed to escape the whipping light that came back again and again, breaking first the clothes where available, and then the skin.

If the watching wizards and witches, crunched together in a far corner from the spectacle, hadn't been afraid until then, they were becoming it now. With flying light from spells they could deal, it was a part of being magical. However, the magical fireworks that followed now, they had never seen in such intensity and it was a tiny bit intimidating.

The Slytherins in the corner cowered. Bole and Derrick in an unusual show of bravery, stepped out of the crowd and slyly tried to get behind Draco's back to overwhelm him, but more flashes of light whipping at their wand hands, forcing them to drop their wands, made them mould back into the protective mass of bodies again.

"No, no, no, Draco," Hermione screeched. "Draco, don't let him rile you up like this. We knew this was going to happen at one point."

Draco breathed fire into her face. "Do you have any idea what he wants to do to you? What disgusting things go through his mind? Why won't you let me deal with him?"

Perhaps the pressure employed on him and from the blood pooling in his head or the pains from the lashes and gashes had made Flint incapable to rein in his speech centre, but speaking up again he did. Unwisely, so.

"Hey, Draco, you should have my view from here. Nice butt, she has, the mudblood. Have you tried that hole yet? Does it bloom nicely when you slap it?"

Throwing a _Silencio_ his way, without moving her wand, Hermione screeched: "Flint, shut the fuck up if you value your soundness."

She breathed hard already from the strain to hold Malfoy back. She would have to negotiate with Draco to prevent him from doing something they would both regret, and quick. Her hands on his chest, she raised her eyebrows to him. "I can imagine what he wants to do. I don't need to know each detail. But it's not happening and you know why. Let Gallows collect them," she tried to speak calmly but it was difficult doing so while this enraged blond wizard pushed against her. Oh, gosh, it had been so much better to have him press his naked chest against hers.

"He can collect their mangled remains," Draco snarled and sent a wave of magic around Hermione. The screaming behind her put testimony to the fact that it had hit its target.

"Nooooo, Draco, stop, stop, stop, don't, don't, don't." Hermione whimpered, trying to wrestle with him. Unfortunately, a slim woman is not a match against a six foot two inch tall man, and he pushed her backwards while trying to get closer to the hanging men.

There was only one way. She had to warn him, though.

"Draco, if you don't let them go, I'm going to fight you," Hermione said with a shaky voice, tears pricking her eyes.

"You would fight me for them?" he spat. "Are you insane, Granger? This scum?"

"Even scum deserves a trial. Where would we be if we all took justice into our own hands? Wasn't Voldemort enough?"

"Get out of my way. I don't want to hurt you, Granger, but so help me, I will if you won't let me crush them to pulp. They can sentence what's left of them when I'm done," he spat again.

"Well, then." Hermione took a deep breath and without further warning threw her magic up against Draco's. The crash when they clashed shook the house and made the Slytherins in the corner sink down to their knees. While pushing against him, even fighting him for his own protection, she couldn't stop pleading, though.

"You are so much better than them. Don't, Draco, don't do anything foolish. You can never take it back. You are so much smarter, so much better, they are scum, don't put yourself on the same level, which you do when you hurt them, don't, just don't, please, Draco, please. If not for you, do it for me, please, don't kill them, please, don't maim them, please, please, please."

In an echo of what he had heard the night on the Astronomy tower in his mind, she actually pleaded with him. And it would have reached him, had he not been so enraged. That night of Dumbledore's death, he didn't want to do it, he had to. He had been desperate, he had been afraid and he had reached out to all help that came his way. He had just wanted to find a way out. Flint and Pucey, on the other hand, had taken something from him one day that he could never get back and made him feel like the lowest shite and he loathed them into deepest hell for it. And he was going to let them feel how it was, when you feel your soul crushed because you lost your innocence. If he had to get around Granger for that, so be it.

The sparkling and bristling of their colliding magics made the Weasley's fireworks look like a cheap copy. Blue and red flashes and sparks and swirls flew through the air without resistance.

"Theo, put a Protection charm over you all. This is going to get worse," Hermione yelled to the wizard who was still sitting where he had fallen, numbed from the blast. But he reacted when Hermione called to him. Crouching backward to the others, he raised his wand and erected a protection shield in front of them.

And just in time, because Hermione put pressure on Draco's forward pushing magic and unyielding as they both were, the sizzling got to the boiling point quickly. The magic swirling around them went this way and that way, trying to get around, trying to push back. Hermione tried to open her magic up again to swallow Draco's, but that wouldn't work this time. He wouldn't come. He pulled back and aimed again and collided his field against hers with another clash and explosive bang that made the witnessing crowd scream and whimper.

But Hermione had been prepared for it. So far, she had only tried to hold him back. She had tried to appeal to the conscience she knew he had. But pleading hadn't helped, so she tried something else. Whatever Flint and Pucey had done to him was enough to make him want to hurt them badly. And she couldn't allow that.

"Draco Ladon Arion Malfoy, you will step down this instant and let Law Enforcement deal with the scum. You will not be responsible for hurting them and go to Azkaban for it," she snarled at the wizard before her, while she pushed at his chest again. "Over my dead body." She screamed out her frustration at Draco's stubbornness.

He laughed in her face, the furious glimmer in his eyes beyond reason. "Make me, Granger."

Looking back at him, capturing his gaze, Hermione let her own power unfold. She would have to stop him.

"I will, Malfoy, so help me all that's holy."

And then she pushed back. She pushed her magic against his with all her might. She was equal to him, wasn't she? He couldn't push her over, couldn't he? Well, he shouldn't be able to but he was surely gaining way. Rage was a stronger motivator than worry.

The sizzling and the bristling intensified. There were more whipping flashes of light, this time against each other, without actually touching flesh. Red was pushing into blue and blue was swiping at red to get out of the way. The magic started shaking and vibrating as it had the day of the inception and many a Slytherin would have started praying if they had known how. It resembled the end of the world. They were all afraid it was going to explode and wipe them out.

Until Hermione did a side step and took the pressure off Malfoy's chest for a split second. Holding against it with all his strength, focused on getting to his goal, he stumbled and Hermione used that moment to dive her magic into his lowered defences from the side and clamp around it.

She clawed her magic over the side of his where his defence was weak because he had focused on the front. Before Draco could reorient himself, Hermione was already halfway over his energy cloud. Hooked into the side she climbed up piece by piece, panting heavily for the strain, until she had reached the summit and let her magic roll down the other side like a blanket over a rock until she had covered him whole and pushed him down. He moaned. She had him.

He tried to break free, pushing from the inside out like a bucking horse, mixing their energies, pressing into each other.

The light changed. The red and blue mixing created a serene purple. Tying Draco down magically like a captured bull by the horns, forced to his knees, the bristling lightened up once more, because he tried to get out one last time, and then subsided, when he gave up, and the light dimmed.

Draco sagged against her shoulder with another moan. Hermione caught him. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders and his waist, she held the man who was a head taller and much broader than she against her slim body and stroked soothingly over his back and neck.

"Granger," he whimpered.

"It's alright, Draco. I've got you."

"Don't let go," he whispered against her neck.

"I won't," she replied calmly, while turning her head and moving her lips closer to his. He lifted his head enough for her to reach them and responded to her soft touch equally. "I won't." Only she could see his weak smile.

The Slytherins in the corner, slowly realizing that the worst was over and the end of the world had not yet come, saw a strange picture of their tall poster-child Draco Malfoy being held by a much smaller muggleborn with a bushy head with unmitigated strength. Behind them, bleeding from numerous little gashes and dripping blood on the carpet, hung two wizards upside down, gagged and disarmed and bound like cured meat.

"Does that answer your question, Pansy?" Blaise spoke to his fiancée, watching his magically tied down mate across the room from him.

Pansy snorted. "She had already." Straightening up, she stroked over her ruffled hair to smooth it down. "Love," she said, "is a powerful thing."

"I quite agree," Blaise answered. "And Merlin, what power. I'll take care that it doesn't leave the room before they are ready to come out. Gawds, but she got him good. What a woman." Only then did he turn to his woman. "You alright, babe?"

Pansy sent her husband-to-be a sideways look in warning. He grinned back at her.

And although it struck midnight at that moment, and minutes later deluxe versions of Weasley's Wildfire Whizbangs started up from the neighbouring estates outside the French doors of the room, nobody was paying any attention to it. They had seen quite enough fireworks for the night. Happy New Year.

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_Hach, alright, I had a different, much lamer version of this chapter previously, the Flint and Pucey fight was in there, but much less spectacular and all the dialogues, but it was without the Granger-Malfoy altercation. And I wasn't quite satisfied with it, it didn't quite connect properly._

_And then I had the idea at the beginning of the week to have Draco snapping and Hermione preventing him from actually hurting Flint and Pucey by raising her magic up against him. And I re-wrote the entire chapter. I believe this justifies your expectations better (and Artemisgodess said, they should just have a big showdown, well, this pays tribute to your suggestion), and it brings a thing in that I needed for later. You'll see. The only problem is that I have to rewrite all the other remaining chapters as well (darn) and match them to this one. And it's mighty complicated. I was as good as finished. _

_Well, let me know how you liked this one and of it's over the top and so on._

_I'm sorry that I picked Flint and Pucey to be the bad guys. After reading "The List" by it felt wrong in a way but I needed the two guys he played Quidditch with. It took a while to change the picture in my head, it helped to actually visualize the actor who plays Flint in the movie._

_You'll find out why Flint and Pucey got to Draco so badly in the next chapter, although you likely already got the idea, didn't you? Let's let them rest a little, shall we? Draco is exhausted. Sssh._


	37. New Year

_A/N: Thank you, guys. I'm glad you liked it. Let's see if I can tie it back in. _

_For a personal request from Anon, here's the update (you're lucky that I just checked it over. Don't blame me if it wasn't ready to go (wink)) _And hey, Anon, how were you able to review twice for one chapter? I thought you can't do that.__

_But I have to say: I went to read the last chapter on its actual site, not as a word file, and I was aghast how different it reads on the fanfiction page. And how far I still have to go to make this a really good story that reads as nicely as from really good writers. It reads very abrupt at times. Sigh. Oh, well. I also made the mistake to check out the Summer 2012 hp fanfic poll awards over on livejournal, and there are some freaking excellent stories in the running. And it makes me depressed every time I read a story by lomonaaeren. I just can't flex my words the way she can. Arrgh._

_Thank you, **articcat621**, **ChoColATE462** (I went to a Peruvian restaurant once that you wouldn't have seen if you didn't know it was there and it had fantastic food. ;-))), **Gryff-Slytherin** (yeah, sorry about Flint and Pucey but I needed the Quidditch connection, and Flint was Team Captain. I read fantastic nice stories about him as well and it was difficult.), **Anon** (I don't know how to put it lightly but: what are you doing up in a tree at night? You are not possuming, are you? And I've got a few more weeks' worth of updates for you but be prepared, hon. I can't go longer, I'm already way over my time limit, I need to get the story out of my head and concentrate on my (paid) work. And the story is finished where it's finished, you'll see. But I've got a few related one-shots running through my head already, while I'm writing this. Let's see what I can make out of it.), and __**Artemisgodess** (I haven't envisioned any friendship between Pansy and Hermione, I just wanted Pansy to get to see Hermione's point of view, bridging the traditional gap so to say, but thanks for the tip. Harry and Draco, on the other hand, well, you'll have to wait another two chapters. They'll be getting there, very slowly.)_

_On that note, I really need to hurry and I can't invest as much time into the story as I used to. So, if you feel it starts to sound a little hurried or stops making sense because I overlooked something, TELL ME. You are all my beta readers, tell me if something stops making sense._

_And I struggled, because I changed the last chapter very shortly before publication and I have to match everything through to the end to it and the end (it's pretty much written) back to this and so, I didn't get it done for the last weekend. In addition, I was gone both last weekends to family celebrations and didn't have much time to work on this. So, please, again, in light of this, tell me what went wrong and where it does._

_Until then, enjoy the read_

_Oh, a Warning: this chapter contains a scene of a description of a non-con assault. Don't read it if you are sensitive to it. _

_And a Disclaimer for those who haven't noticed: the characters in this story belong to JK Rowling of the Potteruniverse. I just claim the story._

**.**

**Chapter 30: New Year**

.

On the first day of the year 1999, Hermione woke up, as usual with her limps intertwined with Draco's. How they could sleep like that was a miracle to Hermione. She knew that she normally needed more than half a bed in her sleep because she moved around, her busy mind reflected in her sleep. It seemed that Draco's presence in her bed calmed her sleep rhythms. Odd.

It was late in the morning, and watery sunrays filtering through the shades into her bedroom landed right on a male hip bone. She smiled, thinking "Happy New Year to me", when she let her eyes glide up and down the male body belonging to the lightened hip.

So, this was the New Year and she was starting it in the arms of Draco Malfoy. Coming home after the party, he had simply dropped on the bed, gathered her in his arms and fallen asleep. She didn't blame him. After what had happened, it was no wonder he was worn out. The nap that had never taken place had insured that they had already been exhausted beyond comprehension.

She was glad that he had come back with her, though. He could have been terribly ashamed or angry at her for fighting him in front of his friends and for beating him. But it would have made matters worse, if he had carried this out with himself. From what she could see, sleep hadn't brought the sought after respite for Draco, because even relaxed in his sleep he looked distraught. If he had been alone, it likely would have been worse. She was tempted to stroke over the frown on his forehead and the shadows under his eyes but she didn't want to wake him. Another hour of sleep would do him good.

And there had been something else. While she put her magic against him, it had given her an uncomfortable ache right behind her navel. Or a little lower. Funnily, the compow hadn't exploded like the last time they had fought, but Hermione figured that was because the previous day, she hadn't been fighting him in anger: she had prevented him from doing something stupid. When the compow had exploded on them, they had matched their anger against each other, their enmities out in the open. And this time, all she had thought about was to stop him from giving in to his rage because he would regret it later. But the thought that he would be angry with her for going so openly against him, and leave her alone for the night, had hooked in her lower belly and pulled painfully. Like a sharp menstrual pain. The thought that this wizard would not be here next to her on that very morning had given her an ache between her legs. An asinine empty, hollow ache. As if something elemental was missing.

But she had no doubt that before this day was over, they would have found opportunities to, well, get some exercise between the sheets and the hollow to be filled. Hermione pulled up an eyebrow in disbelief. Was she actually thinking about doing it with Draco Malfoy? Looking forward to it? Hermione Granger, the bookworm incarnate? She giggled a little and then stretched genially, anticipation tingling in her bones.

"Would it be too much to ask that you don't knock me awake in the morning?" A sleepy growl came from her right. She didn't let it bother her and sat up, bending over him.

"Rise and shine, honeybun," she sing-sanged. "If you sleep so close to me, you can't complain if you wake when I move. Count yourself lucky that I didn't push you over the edge during the night. I seem to sleep much quieter since you are here."

The deliciously handsome man with the rumpled blond strands opened his eyes and speared her with an ice-cold stare. "I've left girls in tears for much lesser offenses. Don't ever call me a pet name," he growled.

Hermione snickered. Yesterday's doubts in the past and token of appreciation given and received, and civil conversations had with some of his friends, she was content, and she started to love their bantering, she really did. Draco's snarkiness gave their banter the right spice. Harry and Ron had always been too intimidated by her snide remarks. She put her nose against his and smiled in his face. "Or what, sweetheart?" she teased slyly.

He snarled and with the velocity of an attacking snake he reached up and pulled Hermione down to his chest, turning her in the process so that she came to rest with her back to his front. With the same quickness, he had come up so that he could put his teeth on the side of her neck. Hermione squeaked in shock at his quick action but giggled when she felt him nibbling on her skin.

Oh, yes, and a magical fight won and his soul saved. Big sigh. Gawd, had that ever been hairy.

"Or I'll have you for breakfast. Crispy Granger skin would be just the thing."

His hand on her breast, palming it over the sleep shirt, he nibbled his way up and down her neck to her continuously shorter gasps until he reached her ear lobe and pulled it gently with his teeth.

"Happy New Year, Granger," he whispered directly in her ear.

He might as well have whispered little naughty nothings, because Hermione shivered. His whispering in her ear went directly down to the centre between her legs and tickled it awake. While Draco still rubbed the tip of his nose over her ear shell and neck, she turned around. They had somehow missed the clock struck twelve last night, and the wishing each other a happy new year. They had been somewhat busy holding each other up.

Looking up into tired grey eyes, she said: "Happy New Year to you, Draco," and stroked her forefingers once down from his forehead, down the side of his face to his chin.

After a brief shallow kiss, a short look in her eyes brought back the memory of last night and he let his head sink on her reclined shoulder in weariness. She stroked his hair. She couldn't hold her curiosity and concern back any longer. "What happened with Flint and Pucey?"

He slipped back to her side, settled flush against her and fixed his gaze on her mouth. "Remember what Flint said about a girl in a yellow dress?"

Hermione didn't dare move a muscle but she had to put her assumption out there. "The one they raped?"

Draco nodded. After a minute of staring at her lips, he seemed to have gathered enough resolve to tell what was on his mind.

"I followed the sound of her screaming to find them in the middle of it. It didn't even sound human and I thought they were slaughtering a pig in the stables, until I turned the corner into the barn. Her dress was ripped in two, and Pucey was holding her down in the straw while Flint had a go. She fought them tooth and nail until Flint had enough of her scratches and bites and beat her close to unconsciousness. I tried to distract and divert them with everything I could think up, asking if she was even magical and how disgusting if she was a muggle and had they no self-respect and so on, but they finished what they started, disregarding me, just leaving me standing there. I've never seen anything more disgusting and brutal, and so, I went to wait outside, biting my fingernails down to the flesh, trying to block out the sounds." He paused to exhale.

"When they were both sated, they fell asleep with their pants still pulled down and I had a chance to get to the girl. She was a mess. The only thing I could do was to heal and obliviate her. I couldn't have prevented the rape by stunning them, it would have cost my head, and my family's as well, to act against Flint. He was one sought after Death Eater recruit for his maliciousness, and I would have had a job to explain why. I repaired and cleaned her blood stained dress and levitated her far away from Flint's farm, close to the village behind the separating forest. I put her in the grass under a huge willow, so that she would think she had fallen asleep and had a bad dream. I hoped she lived in the village. It wasn't far from where I deposited her." He paused and swallowed heavily. Hermione held her breath.

"I didn't return to Flint's farm but went back home and hid in my room. I must have chucked up the entire content of my stomach and then some. I was sick for two days. Since he brought it up yesterday, of course, I dreamed about it."

Right, he had gripped her very tight during the night and whimpered. Hermione had woken up because of it but gone right back to sleep when he had turned away and let go. His nightmares had become less frequent but she hadn't been surprised that the events of the previous night hadn't let him sleep well. When he paused again in his telling and it didn't seem like he had more to add, Hermione asked quietly: "When was that?"

Draco swallowed again and said: "The summer before fourth year. I was just fourteen." Hermione gasped and put a consoling hand on his cheek, but didn't want to comment on it.

"Our relationship on the Quidditch team was a little disturbed after that. Luckily, there was no Quidditch in fourth year due to the Triwizard Tournament, but I had to make a friendly face. They gave pointed hints from time to time that the next time they would let me participate. I made a vow to myself that I would never, ever contribute to such brutality. I vowed to myself that I would never take a girl or woman against her will. And then I was initiated as a Death Eater at just sixteen and the exact thing was required of me."

"You mentioned it that night in the classroom but I never heard what became of it," Hermione asked tentatively.

Draco snorted. "I was able to divert them, again and again, and I was lucky. My mother did her very best to change the topic, whenever it came up, and pointed out that it would distract me from my task. Snape did the same thing, saying I wouldn't be able to focus if I was distracted by such mundane things, and my father, incredibly, didn't say anything either. Once I was invited to a meeting and I nearly lost it in freight. But before anything could take place, Voldemort got called away. He had to leave immediately, and the meeting was called off. Back in the manor, I sank to the floor just inside the door to my room, with our talk from the classroom on my mind, and didn't move for the rest of the night in relief. I believe early in the morning Deezy levitated me back on my bed. After sixth year, I refused to go home as much as possible, since he was living in our house when he was in Britain, and Voldemort luckily had other things on his mind. I had to endure their taunts at every opportunity, though. Flint and Pucey in particular insinuated that I was likely gay because I didn't push the issue to participate in a "meeting". One more reason to shag as many girls as possible, to get a reputation."

He had to tell her that much. Hermione had a right to know why he had sought out so many women and why he had reacted so vehemently last night, because she had put her neck out for him. But there were things he couldn't yet say out loud. He wasn't sure if he ever could. One of those things was that every time he was with a girl and he heard the noises of sex, of flesh meeting flesh, he fought himself tooth and nail, like the girl fighting against Flint, to disassociate these noises with his memory, focusing only on the pleasures. He tried everything he could think of to make this pleasurable togetherness enjoyable for both of them, the girl and himself, to try to replace the memory with pleasurable sex and to drown out the nausea that crept up his throat every time he didn't pay attention to their mutual pleasure. And every time he managed to climax, when he had convinced himself enough that this was effing good, when he had brought the woman he was with to climax enough to convince himself that she enjoyed it, every time he gave into softening his inner defences through the climax, the memory came flooding back and he had to leave, because the nausea overtook him. He needed the release to quiet his mind but he had to fight himself to get there, each and every time. He got there, alright, but it was a rocky road.

With Granger, though, he didn't need to fight with himself. When he was with Granger, not only did she arouse him more than sufficiently, but he didn't have to fight the memories surfacing. In fact, within the last few days he had been with her, he hadn't thought about it once. Not until Flint and Pucey had appeared at the party. As if she was a mental buffer to some horrors of his past. His mind was calm in Granger's vicinity, even though his mouth wasn't and other body parts weren't either. As if her presence blocked some areas of his mind and enhanced others, especially the ones to do with shagging. As if she grabbed his prick in her warm hands and held him thus, and he was perfectly relaxed and content to think of nothing else but the fact how her gentle hands on his prick felt. Warm. Comfortable. Tingling. Arousing.

And then he remembered why he thought about her hands on his prick, and was bolted back into reality.

Draco still didn't look in her eyes and Hermione could see by the flush on his usually pale cheeks that this topic upset him very much. And he put one more on top. His scowl had gotten deeper and deeper the more he talked.

"When they mentioned last night, these beasts, that they wanted to do the same to you, I couldn't stay calm. To think they could have gotten their fingers on you, just to imagine …" He couldn't continue. His voice got stuck in his clogged up throat.

Hermione quickly embraced him and pulled him against her. He breathed heavily into her throat.

"Draco, it would never happen. Even if you are not always around, I'm quite able to protect myself."

"You don't know that," he spat, pressed against her chest. She pulled back a little, being spat at. "You don't know what they are capable of. That's the downside of you goody-two-shoes, you cannot imagine what cruelties people, even wizards can think up. You just can't." He swallowed hard and then added: "I couldn't either until I saw it."

He hid his face in the crock of her neck and breathed deeply. Her scent was still the best pacifier for his upsets, the same as the rose scent that was prevalent in the protection of his rooms. Was that the downside of love? When you loved, you were afraid for your loved ones? But he'd always known that, didn't he? He still wouldn't trade it for the world, this heart opening feeling, now that he knew it. But he needed to hold her real tight, to make sure she was safe.

Hermione stroked through his hair, massaging the nape of his neck and his scalp. She felt his arms cling around her, as if he was afraid somebody would rip her out of them. She liked it, how he held her tight, but she would have rather that he'd not done it out of desperation.

So close to him, smelling his spicy scent and feeling his warm body next to hers and digging into his soft hair, the heat surging through her made her heart swell and burst. It felt like flowers blooming, like the air in the spring when you feel like skipping and dancing and singing because the sun is shining and the winter is over and Hermione let herself be dragged away by this wonderful feeling of being alive and of experiencing life to its fullest, of wanting to embrace even her worst enemy. He needed her. He couldn't be all bad if he needed and accepted her help. This was what love was all about, this heart bursting feeling because it was full to the brim. She'd never felt like that with Ron.

"Why did you fight me?" he mumbled into her throat.

Hermione kissed his temple and said: "You know why."

He nodded. A minute or two later, he brought his head up and fixed her gaze with a frown. Delving in her pleasant thoughts of love, she gave him a smile.

"How is it even possible that you won? I am a man and you are a slim woman." He didn't want to go into the pureblood-muggleborn discussion. It wasn't significant or relevant. She was magically as powerful as he was. Period.

Hermione breathed a laugh. "Well, we were not brawling, so physical strength didn't count. And since we are of equal magical strength, it didn't really make a difference either. So, I'm either smarter than you, strategically, or …" She paused, wanting to see if he owned up to it. He didn't.

"Or what?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

She gave him a light kiss. "Or you wanted me to win."

His eyes widened. "Why would I want to be vanquished by a muggleborn in a magical fight?"

She tilted her head as far as that was possible, lying on a pillow. "It wasn't about the fight. You didn't want to be defeated. But as enraged as you were, you still didn't really want to face the consequences of killing. You are too smart for that and too focused on saving your hide. You wanted me to prevent you from executing what your rage told you to do. You are no killer, Draco, and I'm glad for it. If you were, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have matched. I can't be with somebody who doesn't value life, even if I'm in love with him."

Draco looked at her for a minute, processing what she had said. Not that she was in love with him, although that was a nice touch. Too late, Granger, he thought. I was in love with you first. When my friends see it, it has to be pretty obvious. But what he actually thought about was the way she had judged the situation last night properly and jumped in to protect him. She had protected Flint and Pucey effectively as well, but not for their sake. She had done it for his sake. Not many people had done that. His mother would have, he trusted her enough for that. His godfather Snape had done it. But Hermione Granger?

And now he owed her. He would have to do the same for her, jump into danger to protect her, to not be in her debt. For some reason, that didn't even irk him. Of course, he would. How could he not?

She saw it in the movement of his eyes, how he processed her words. She let him, stroking his cheek and his hair and her finger over his lips. When he was done thinking, he pulled her to him with full force and crushed her in his arms, breathing hard into her hair. Hermione held him back and endured that his crush was cutting off her oxygen and close to broke her rips.

"Thank you."

She nodded, choking. "Anytime."

When his breathing calmed a little and his arms slackened, she moved her mouth right over his ear and whispered: "I'm sorry for what you had to see. What can I do to help you now?"

He pulled back a little and she was sad to see his red rimmed eyes, looking sternly at her forehead in front of them.

"Draco," she exclaimed and pulled him close again, when tears pricked her own eyes. His face pressed against her, kissing his forehead, and his eyes, she murmured: "What can I do?"

He stilled her, finally, by his hands on her shoulders, and said hoarsely: "Keep me warm."

Hermione hmmmm'd, her chin on his forehead, her vibration going through him, she slung her limps around him, and he liked it, just as he liked the body heat coming from her and the feeling of her soft skin against his and under his hands and her perfect breasts right close to his mouth, even though they were covered. He liked almost everything coming from this woman. "Ginny said to keep you warm," she said. "I don't think she meant it literal, but there you have it. I'll see what I can do."

He snorted and freed his head a little. "Do you think it's another dimension of difference, warm and cold?"

She hmm'd again. "But you are not cold, Draco. Inside you are passionately hot. You just feel cold. And I think our compow is quite strong enough. We don't need to find more differences."

He pulled his arms around her tight again and pressed his face against her skin. "Well, I certainly don't feel cold when you hold me. On the contrary, I feel warmth flowing through me when I touch you."

"Hm, yes, I feel that, too," Hermione mused. "I wonder why that is. By the way, nice going with the spell capture. We knew we could break spells, we didn't know yet that we can actually capture them. Can you show me how to do that?"

"I wasn't really paying attention, Granger. I was out of my furious mind. I don't know how I did it," he snarled.

"Hm," Hermione mused. "Well, we'll figure that out in time. It's good to know that we can do it, though. Well, at least you."

Draco used the opportunity of her musing to explore her throat and neck thoroughly with his lips. Every last square millimetre to be exact. "If I can do it, you can do it, Granger. We are equal, remember?"

Hermione smiled. It was true but it was good to hear him say it. She let go of her thoughts and focused on the titillating things he did to her throat and neck. Until he halted suddenly, when a thought occurred to him.

"What do you think Dumbledore will tell us?"

Hermione sighed. "I have no idea. That's why we have to talk to him. I can't figure it out and it's driving me nuts."

Draco mulled something over in his mind. Missing his indulging kisses, Hermione asked: "Draco, what is it?"

"Remember what Pucey said? That's it's insane to love a muggleborn?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, but honestly, …"

But before she could say what one should obviously think of the stupidity of one Adrian Pucey, Draco spoke again, his face set in angry furrows.

"What if I am not in my right mind? What if they'll tell us that we did fall in love because of the compow?"

Hermione put a soothing hand on his shoulder. "Draco, the compow has nothing to do with it. You told me that."

He shook his head. "I said the compow didn't force us. But what if it has something to do with it? If we fell in love because of it?" What if the magic made him and he would lose this feeling if ever the magic stopped? What if it was all a fluke and it wasn't real to begin with?

Hermione rolled her eyes again. "That was my point exactly yesterday and before and you didn't want to hear it. You side tracked me on my fear of emotions. Now, that we are back to lovey-dovey, what would be wrong with it?"

He scrutinized her with narrowed eyes. "Are you able to tell exactly why you fell in love with me?"

She blushed. "Erm, I think so."

He waited. When she didn't say more, he prompted. "And?"

She wiggled uncomfortably. "What and? Are you?" She wasn't there yet, that she would openly gush about her reasons of falling in love with Draco Malfoy.

"And could it have something to do with the compow? Could magic have something to do with your reason?" He ignored her question. He wasn't able to answer it in one sentence. It was too complex.

She shook her head. "No. Well, only indirectly at the most."

He wasn't reassured. He moved on his back and rubbed his face with his hands.

Hermione urged him further. Her doubts quieted for once, her brain was fully functioning: "Look at it that way: if we had worked on something else together, we might have still gotten to know each other and fallen in love. Would you blame sick people in St. Mungo's for your falling in love, then?"

He groaned. "There wouldn't have been any connecting magic involved and it would have been clear that it was from our own free will."

Hermione shook her head sceptically. "You don't know that. You could have possibly blamed some magic happening in the hallways. We are magical folks, after all."

Draco snorted. "Unlikely, that. The thing is, we would have never worked together if not for the compow. If the compow didn't exist, I would have never gotten any closer to you because you would have remained "Granger the mudblood"."

Hermione sighed. She knew what he meant but it was idle to look at things that way. The compow did exist and they had worked together and now they were in love. Period.

"Draco, what's the worst that could happen if we fell in love because of the compow?"

"We would never know if we could have freely fallen in love. We would always feel manipulated into feeling something," he growled irritated, staring at the ceiling.

Hermione clucked her tongue. "And I know that you hate being manipulated. But would it change your feelings?"

"It might, knowing that my feelings are not natural."

She shook her head again. "No, let me rephrase that question. Would you want to feel any different than you feel now? Would you not want to be in love with me? Would you want to get rid of this feeling?"

He looked over, right into her warm eyes. Would he not want to be in love with this amazing woman who forced him to fight his demons? Who cared so much that she didn't waste a thought on possible consequences for herself fighting him down? Who even in overwhelming him and his magic was gentle and wanted to kiss him right after subduing him? Who was so strong that she was able to subdue him without harming or hurting him? Who locked horns with him for his own protection? Who didn't even want to explore it at length and bathe in her glory and knew exactly why their battle had happened? And didn't want to blame him for it? Merlin, he had it bad. Theo was right. But how could he not?

"No," he said therefore. "I wouldn't."

She smiled. Her smile was beautiful, when so freely given, and he had had so few opportunities to see it. He felt a tingling in his chest because of it.

"See? So even if they'd told us that the compow has something to do with it, it won't change a thing. "

He rolled over on his side to be able to scoop her in his arms again and smooched big, fat kisses on her smiling mouth. "Let's wait and see. Ignorance is bliss, so let's just indulge into our blissful sex-life as long as we don't know we are being magically induced to it."

But somehow the anticipation of the great resolution to their adjuncted magic distracted them. They found themselves mulling over things, remembering and reliving experiences they'd had together, and it did interfere with their shagging need.

Simply separating and staring into space, Hermione asked: "How many kids do you want?"

Draco shrugged. "I don't know. I want one boy for sure to carry on the name and I suppose it would be nice to have a little girl as well, as a minimum. But Malfoys don't usually beget girls. They are very rare. I wouldn't mind a whole house full of children. I'm rich enough to hire fulltime childcare if I need to get away and rest my tired head or want to enjoy time with my wife. But I really don't want to think about more responsibility right now, Hermione."

"Okay," she said, not in the least offended. "It's only ten. You can rest for another hour and then we have to get up to go and see Professor McGonagall."

"Hm," he made, nuzzling her shoulder. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to read a book that I had on my nightstand for months and haven't even cracked open yet, because you've kept me busy. And I wonder where the Daily Prophet is today," Hermione remarked.

He snickered. "As long as you stay in bed with me." To underline his point he put a hand on her breast and the other on her bottom to feel her up and went to work on her neck again.

Unfortunately, he was interrupted by an owl knocking on the window, carrying the Sunday's edition of the Daily Prophet.

With an "Oh. Finally." Hermione wriggled herself out of his embrace and crossed over to the window to let the owl in. Watching her open the window and shiver in the cold air that came in, taking the scrolled newspaper and paying the owl in just a sleep shirt that barely covered the essentials was enticing but not quite sufficient in Draco's opinion. But the view of her behind and the open window gave him ideas …

When she came back to the bed, Hermione was already perusing the headlines. "It's on page three. "_Malfoy heir gives up his right for true love. Nott and Greengrass engaged"_."

Diving back under the blanket that Draco lifted up for her, she quickly read through the article they had planted in the paper with the help of Rita Skeeter, to check for inconsistencies. "This all looks okay, she mentions the fact that Theo and Astoria were in love for a long time in secret but her parents pushed her to accept Malfoy, of course, well, you. When you realized how heartbroken she was, with her lost love, you went to Theo yourself and so on and so forth."

Draco pulled on a corner of the newspaper, wanting to see for himself. "Hold on, in a minute," Hermione mumbled. "What's this here? There's an addendum by Parvati Patil, called paddy whack." She read for a few seconds and then gasped loudly. "Oh my."

"What, Granger?" Draco asked alarmed, sitting up and ripping the paper away from her. There under the regular article by Rita Skeeter, where she had cited word for word what Draco, his mother, Theo and Astoria had fed her, on Hermione's advice, was a short addendum by Patil where she interviewed her friend Lavender Brown for the newest gossip.

"_At the dinner party of one Harry Potter very unlikely guests were welcomed. As Lavender Brown, fiancée of Ronald Weasley who's the best mate of Harry Potter, tells me, Hermione Granger came with Draco Malfoy of all people. The same Draco Malfoy who just so heart wrenchingly has given up his fiancée to Theodore Nott. Is it possible that he simply found something better and needed to get rid of his betrothed?_

"_I doubt it," Lavender says. "I mean, we all appreciate what Hermione did, helping Harry to defeat You-know-who. But compared to Astoria Greengrass, she would rather fall short, wouldn't you say? _

_But there was something to the two. They couldn't keep their hands of each other and I was told they are magically connected. I would think, putting him under a spell is the only way Hermione Granger could end up with someone like Draco Malfoy. _

_But it is fishy that he discarded his fiancée for her. And that's not all. I saw her embrace my fiancé, Ronald Weasley, away from prying eyes, in the kitchen. Now, we all know that she had her claws in him for some time. Eventually, he was able to free himself and come back to me. The Golden trio went on a yearlong quest together and I can imagine that she put my Won-won under her spell during that time. We know she's a powerful witch. When they came back after the year, they got together, but it didn't last. _

_I think though, she'd like to keep her iron in several fires, in case the thing with Malfoy doesn't work out. We all know how love potions and - magic not always work reliably and Malfoy is not the most reliable of partners, is he?"_

_It remains to be seen what will come of that. It is well known that Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger work together in seclusion at the Ministry to help the Aurors. But apart from his sentence to do work for the common good what reason could Malfoy have to be seen with Hermione Granger? This writer is certainly more than curious why they should appear together anywhere in public, apart for work reasons. Parvati Patil for the Daily Prophet._

"Bloody hell," Draco cursed, once he had finished reading. "That wench. No wonder Rita was so smug and obedient, the stupid cow. She already knew there was going to be something about us from Lavender. We played right in her hands." He looked up. "What are we going to do, Granger? Granger?"

Hermione had sneaked out of bed and put some clothes on while he was reading the article. She just came from her closet and was now about to leave the bedroom.

"Where are you going?"

Curtly she replied, her anger barely contained: "I am going to floo Harry and ask him to use his connections to give an interview. Looks like we'll have to give another one today. This time, the two of us and Harry."

Draco stared at Hermione with his mouth lightly open. "What about?"

Hermione frowned. "About our adjunction and what we've done so far with it and how well we fight. It's time to disclose it to the public. Harry will be happy to confirm that. And with any luck, we'll find out more when we talk to Professor Dumbledore later. It'll distract people from any relationship issues."

As soon as she had finished her sentence, she turned and left the room. Draco could hear her proceeding to the living room where she made more noise than necessary. He heard the whoosh of the flames come up and Hermione's voice calling for Potter. He looked back down to peruse the article again and mumbled to himself: "I love this woman. If she hadn't been a muggleborn, she would have made it in Slytherin."

.

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_A/N: It may seem odd after the Daily Prophet article and set-up of the interview, but they __do__ have an appointment with McGonagall – and they intend to keep it. Pressing matters and all. The interview will come later. Just to keep you squirming in your seats. _

**.**

When they arrived at Hogwarts two hours later, their old teacher, Professor McGonagall, greeted them already in the entrance hall and took Hermione's hands in both of hers.

"My dear Ms Granger, how have you been? It's so good to see you."

Hermione smiled at her favourite teacher. "Except for a short stay at St. Mungo's I've been well, how are you? Happy New Year, Professor."

"Ah, the work, the work. I heard about your stay at St. Mungo's. I'd like to hear more about the circumstances later. Mr Malfoy, how do you do?" Despite her friendly greeting, she looked at him sternly over her square spectacles.

"Quite well, Professor, thank you. Happy New Year."

"Thank you. Let's make our way to my office."

Climbing up the stairs to the higher level, McGonagall continued: "I have to say, Mr Malfoy, I was pleased but quite astonished to receive your Patronus with an answer from Ms Granger. Of course, I heard that you've been working together. But how is it possible that not only your Patronus changed, Ms Granger, but changed into a similar shape of Mr Malfoy's?"

Her beady eyes pierced her favourite former student. Of course, she wasn't nosy. Minerva McGonagall could never be called nosy. She knew her business and she stuck with it. But some things simply needed further explanation.

Turning a corner, Hermione hesitated, and looked at Draco for help. How to explain to her no-nonsense teacher the level of their relationship?

"Well, working our adjuncted magic to find Death Eaters, …" she started what was going to be a long tale of growing together, when she was interrupted by Draco.

"We are in love, Professor." He wasn't quite sneering his Malfoy sneer but he had a determined look, his jaw clenched, his eyes focused, ready to defend his right to love Hermione Granger against his former professor. He looked a little roguish with one of his blond locks falling into his eyes, so unusual for the usually impeccable Malfoy. "And we've been falling in love for quite some time. That's why Hermione's Patronus changed," he added, defiantly.

"I see," Minerva McGonagall replied, eyeing one of her least favourite students sternly while marching down the long corridor to the repaired gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office. It had been a pity. Such potential and nothing but pureblooded obstinacy in the boy. "Ms Granger, are you sure about this?"

The gargoyle jumped aside when McGonagall said: "Dumbledore".

Hermione swallowed. Leave it to McGonagall to become sentimental in light of the losses in the war and chose the name of a late colleague for her password. Well, not just any colleague.

Her old teacher had never been insensitive to other people's feelings. But Hermione felt standing up for her feelings to McGonagall so frankly was hard. She didn't want to see in the old woman's eyes the disappointment that Hermione had fallen prey to silly feelings for an unlikely candidate when she should be doing her best to rebuild the wizarding world. She hated disappointing her teachers. It was one of the reasons why she worked so hard.

But when she turned sideways and looked at Draco, who frowned because of her hesitation, she set her jaw. Just this morning she had felt the ache in her stomach and her heart swell because she loved this man and the time she spent with him. She deserved this break. Rebuilding could still be done tomorrow. And perhaps, they would be able to do something extraordinary, Draco Malfoy and she.

"Yes, I am," she said therefore. Her voice strong, she declared unerringly: "Absolutely."

Draco's face, well, his mouth twitched just the tiniest bit. But she could feel it through the compow, his relief. And she saw it in his eyes how the tension receded because of her acknowledgment. She smiled at him. Another twitch in his mouth indicated a back smile.

"I see," McGonagall repeated. Stepping off the spiralling staircase, she smiled. "I'll say, I didn't see this coming from your adjunction because of the circumstances of the time. But you will make a great couple. I'm sure of it."

Since this came rather unexpected from their former stern teacher, they both choked. "Really, Professor?"

McGonagall's smile became motherly. The pride of her former students was tangible. "But of course. You are both very talented. If Ms Granger's magic gets a little more focus from Mr Malfoy's, you'll be able to move mountains."

Hermione couldn't stop choking and swallowed hard. "You knew?"

"What did I know, Ms Granger?"

"You knew about our different approaches to use magic?"

McGonagall was confused. "Of course, I knew. I was your teacher. I saw you use it. It warmed my heart to see somebody like you being able to command and transform so much magic."

Hermione couldn't believe it. "Why didn't you tell me? Why is this never taught, these differences in handling magic? We could have learned so much so much earlier if I'd known."

"But, my dear child, most children who arrive here either already know or they have so many other, more important things to learn first. It's a part of your magic but not what makes you. If it becomes important to you, you will find out. As you already did, apparently." McGonagall didn't understand her upset. It was just one of the facets of magic.

Draco brought his front to Hermione's side and put one of his hands on her stomach and the other in her back, making soothing circles, and whispered in her ear. "Granger, it's not the most important thing. Calm down. We are here to speak to Dumbledore and Snape, remember?"

"Yes." Hermione inhaled deeply to calm herself. Looking up into his glacier grey eyes, she thought she felt his calm through their magic, steady as a rock. He was right. As blown up and shaken as he had been last night, as tranquil was he now, calming her. They seemed to be able to rely on it: whenever one partner was upset, the other was calm, and the other way round. A good balance. Taking another breath, she said: "Yes, that's right."

"So, before we proceed to lunch, what can I help you with?" McGonagall moved on, actually pleased to see how Mr Malfoy was able to calm an upset Hermione with very little effort and a very simple, if intimate touch. This bode well for them as a couple.

Before either of them could state their business, the office door opened again and in stepped Sybil Trelawney, shuffling a deck of cards in her hands.

"Minerva, upon a word, I just saw… ." She stopped abruptly when she saw that McGonagall wasn't alone.

"Happy New Year, Sybil. Could you come back later, perhaps in the afternoon? As you can see, I have visitors and they actually made an appointment with me."

"But … but… Ms Granger and Mr Malfoy? Oh, how beautiful."

Three pairs of eyes looked at her irritated. What was the old crow babbling about?

McGonagall tried not to look too exasperated but she only managed half way. She definitely couldn't keep it out of her voice: "What is it, Sybil?"

Trelawney stepped forward toward Draco and Hermione standing next to each other, with her hands held high like somebody who was going to worship on an altar.

"They are bathed in white and golden light. So much healing." Trelawney actually sounded as if she was close to tears. She came closer and closer to Hermione and Draco and Draco positioned himself half a step in front of Hermione because Trelawney looked positively spooky, like an enormous insect, with her usual amount of shawls and bangles dangling from her arms. She stopped short about two feet from them and tried to touch the empty air. Then she smiled sadly: "But of course, I cannot touch it." She let her arms sink down and shook her head. With a sad look at Draco and Hermione, she said: "It all makes sense."

Draco rolled his eyes. "And aren't we all glad that it does. At least to you."

Trelawney's sad smile turned to him. Her look reminded Hermione of the times when she had predicted Harry's untimely death and she couldn't for the love of Merlin keep her hackles from going up against the old bat. Which didn't help with openness at Trelawney's next words. "Yes, my boy. I always felt that you were somewhat hollow on the inside with all your riches and comforts from a pureblood family. I always wondered what was missing in your life, and now, that I see you standing here with Ms Granger, well, I see it."

Hermione couldn't hold her eyes from rolling up to the ceiling, although she tried really hard, she did. Her old Professor passed her sad smile onto her: "I know, Ms Granger, you were never quite open to the vibrations of the other world. But you do realize that there are sometimes forces at work that could not be considered entirely scientific, don't you?"

"Sybil, will you please try to explain?" Professor McGonagall admonished her colleague sharply.

"That's what I came to tell you, Minerva. The cards: The Tower, Death, the Lovers; again and again. Great changes are afoot, once again. And they have to do with these two, the lovers. Ah, you will be able to repay your debt, my boy, I can see it. So beautiful, this union."

If the old Divination professor had struck them with lightning, they couldn't have been more shocked. Hermione knew her to be an old fraud, except for these rare occasions when she channelled true prophecies. She had no reason not to believe Harry when he told her. But according to Harry's telling, on those occasions Trelawney wasn't quite herself. And today, she was clearly herself, and made even less sense than usual. Except for these few words, which rang in Hermione because she had heard them before in a different context. She had heard them in a dream concerning her and Draco, concerning their power, their compow, and what it was supposed to mean for them. Union. Debt. Repayment. Death.

"I'm afraid you are not making sense, Sybil," Professor McGonagall chastised the other woman.

"No." Hermione stopped her with a hand held out. "Please, Professor Trelawney. What are you talking about? What debt? What is this union?"

Sybil Trelawney was pleased somebody for once wanted to listen to her. And then her former, oh, so sceptical student, Ms Granger, of all people. She could have kept silent in spite against the doubt of her abilities from her former student, but she wasn't one to hold back her knowledge. She wanted to share what the inner eye revealed. The burden was heavy enough. She sniffed.

"Well, his karmic debt, naturally. In the services of He-who-must-not-be-named, he accumulated karmic debt, sharing in the negativity. But he can balance it out, with your help, as repayment. You are his balance. The white light envelopes both of you. The Tower, destruction, Death, changes, renewal. And then, the Lovers, connecting the roots."

Draco listened sceptically. He had never taken Divination, he had known Trelawney to be a less than adequate teacher. He had taken Ancient Runes instead. At least, there, with some logic deduction, you could find a proper translation. And yes, Granger had taken that as well and aced it as usual. How she did it, he never knew. But he felt vindicated when he looked at Trelawney at that moment. Even though she spouted words that reminded remotely of the shared dream and Granger seemed to have caught onto something, he couldn't believe that this old shrew should be able to contribute anything useful. Of all people.

He sneered: "Sorry, Professor, I don't believe in fortune telling. I believe in making it. Granger, do you really …," he started out, but was quickly silenced by Hermione's hand waving impatiently in the air. He shared a look with Professor McGonagall who was desperately looking for somebody in the room who hadn't gone around the bend. He shrugged.

"But the union? What is the union?" Hermione repeated.

"Well, it's you, you two. When you create a union, you discover the power. A powerful union. Like the Lovers."

Alright, that rang a bell. Powerful union. It had been in the dream. But how did she..?

"How does she know?" Draco murmured.

"That's what I'm trying to find out, you prat," Hermione hissed at him.

"Hey," he said.

"Wait," Professor McGonagall cut in. "You know what she is talking about?"

"Well, in a way," Hermione hedged. "There was a dream … .But it is a delicate matter and we came to discuss it with you and …"

While Professor Trelawney's face lit up, hearing about a dream, Professor McGonagall was quick to squelch her delight. "Say no more, Ms Granger. Sybil, as much as I appreciate your warnings and all, I must insist that you leave us for now. These two have made an appointment with me to discuss matters that are none of your concern. I'll be happy to see you in the afternoon."

"But, a dream, we'll need to interpret…" Trelawney started.

"If there will be any matter where we will need your … expertise, I will call you. Thank you, Sybil." With these kind but firm words it was clear that McGonagall expected Trelawney to get the drift. She did.

"Very well," she sniffed. "I shall keep myself available because I am very certain that before long you will need me in these dream matters. I am the only one who can explain to you clearly what it could mean because the horse speaks in a different tongue."

"Yes, Sybil, thank you. We will call you before Firenze, for certain; especially since he has a hard time coming up the stairs to the office. I'll keep it in mind."

"Thank you, Professor," Hermione called after her.

In being gently but firmly guided to the office door, Trelawney called back: "You are welcome, my dear. I knew you would eventually realize that you were mistaken," before the door closed behind her.

"I wouldn't go that far," Hermione mumbled to herself to Draco's devilish snicker.

"There," Professor McGonagall said when she joined them again. "You were saying …?"

"Well, we came to you for advice regarding our adjunction. We discovered many things about our shared, adjuncted magic but we still can't make hand or foot out of the information to discover what it is meant to do. We are certain it has a purpose. But as long as we don't know it, we don't know what else to do with it. It is very confusing and to make sense out of it, we hoped we could talk to you and Professor Dumbledore and Snape in their portraits," Draco explained calmly.

"And see, in addition, we had a dream, right after Draco's engagement, a shared dream and in it the phrases Professor Trelawney just used, were mentioned," Hermione added, a little less calmly.

"Well, I am certainly no expert in dream interpretation but why don't you have a comfortable seat and start by telling the dream and your discoveries?" Professor McGonagall stated with her usual calm and waved to her couch.

Draco and Hermione exchanged an uncertain glance. It would be difficult to recount the many details in the dream properly.

"May I make a suggestion?" a familiar voice cut in, from somewhere behind them.

.

_A/N: Aaaaand, cut. I'm so sorry. For once I have to cut a running chapter in the middle. And this part is rather short in comparison. But the next part is very intense and when I wrote it, I always stumbled over the inequality of the two parts. I call them the Trelawney and the Dumbledore part. It's better this way, believe me._

_Note: Trelawney, of course, is talking about Tarot cards: the Tower, Death and the Lovers are three trump cards in a tarot set. The white and golden lights are just auras, the colours white and gold stand for healing and protecting as far as I know. And I had to give her something to say and to "redeem" herself. Since the" powers that be" are not entirely scientific, she was the best person for those particular remarks. As Dumbledore was saying (is going to be saying), she has a purpose in the grand scheme of things. Hm, perhaps Lavender gets a chance to redeem herself as well? Nah._

_So, up next the talk with Dumbledore and Snape._

_I struggled to make the first part of this chapter fit to the newly written fight from the last chapter. I hope I succeeded._

_And as usual, tell me what you think._


	38. Resolution

_A/N: Oh, that's right, Anon (slaps forehead). How stupid of me. Well, I hope your exams went well and here's a little reward._

_And thank you, scv914 and nikki98. Here's Snape and Dumbledore for you. The dream interpretation will be mixed within._

_This is it, the big one. What the compow is meant to do, at the end of the chapter (don't peek, you'll spoil the effect for you). I'm a little nervous, if it is truly spectacular, but in the Potter universe, this is big, I think._

_But if it's good, I expect lots of reviews of people saying "Omg, omg, wooow"_

**.**

**Chapter 31: Resolution**

.

"_May I make a suggestion?" a familiar voice cut in, from somewhere behind them._

.

"If you used my old Pensieve we could all see for ourselves what this dream was about."

Draco and Hermione wheeled around. There sat Albus Dumbledore in his gilded portrait frame, right behind McGonagall's desk, and sent them a glance from his twinkly eyes.

"Yes, of course, yes, of course." Professor McGonagall hustled forward and pulled the old pensieve from a shelf in a cupboard and set it on the desk.

"I believe you came to see me?" He smiled benignly at Draco and Hermione.

"Yes, Professor," Hermione confirmed eagerly. Draco, on the other hand, frowned and looked down, uncomfortable to face the man he had last seen when he tried to kill him.

Dumbledore addressed him directly. "No worries, Mr Malfoy, you are more than welcome to seek me out in these times of uncertainty. And there is somebody else who is very happy to see you."

Draco eyes switched to the right when he heard his name called by a portrait of a dark haired man with piercing black eyes in a sallow face. "Draco."

"Uncle Severus, I'm sorry," he replied.

"Don't be, Draco," the portrait of Severus Snape answered. "There's nothing you could have done."

Draco sighed. "True. But I would still rather have liked to have you around. Especially now that I know you weren't one of them," he mumbled. Hermione grabbed his hand and squeezed it. It didn't go unnoticed. Snape raised an eyebrow.

"How have you been doing since your unfortunate or fortunate magical connection?" Snape inquired with badly hidden interest.

"That's why we came to see you. You were there and the three of you are probably the most knowledgeable wizards and witch that we know about. There are still so many open questions, the most important one not being why we adjuncted, but what the actual power of our compow is. We are turning in circles. We have to talk to somebody, preferably somebody who knows about adjunctions. We know all the theoretical stuff from Lovegood's book, but sometimes it doesn't make sense and sometimes it's not enough," Draco explained.

"Well, what have you been doing since we last saw you?"

Draco started recapping: "You know that Granger didn't come back to school for seventh year, don't you?" When both wizards in their respective portrait nodded, he carried on: "Do you know that they were brought into Malfoy Manor where Granger was tortured?"

Both wizards nodded again. "What did you do when that happened?" Dumbledore asked kindly.

Draco lowered his head, too uncomfortable to disclose that he tried to help but only partially succeeded. How was he supposed to tell that Granger suffered badly in his house?

"He took my pain," Hermione murmured, more to herself than to her listeners.

Draco snorted. "I wish I did. I couldn't."

"Draco, you pulled some, that was plenty. It helped me not to crack." Hermione reached up to wipe over his forehead, where a lock had fallen into his eye. It fell right back. Draco jerked his head for the lock to fall to the side and Hermione to take her hands away. These were their teachers, for crying out loud. And she was not his mother.

"You did what?" Professor McGonagall inquired stunned.

When Draco didn't answer, Hermione repeated quietly: "He pulled some of the pain over to himself when I was crucioed by Bellatrix."

McGonagall and Snape pulled up identical eyebrows in astonishment, whereas Dumbledore tapped his chin and mused: "Interesting, interesting." When nobody else said anything, he asked: "And then, what happened?"

"And then came the final battle. Potter, Granger and Weasley saved my life in the Room of Requirements and I tried to keep them unscathed when they moved through the castle. If anybody could top the maniac, it was Potter, we all knew that from the prophecy, didn't we? I wanted him to get there." Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise. She hadn't known that Draco had tried to protect them.

"I was sentenced and I offered my help after the war, and unsurprisingly, Granger was the only one who wanted to work with me. We started checking out old Death Eater hideouts and mysterious things happened. We know now, they happened because the compow gave us the extra power. We researched adjunction magic. We found Lovegood's book, and with the information from it, we created tracking spells to find hidden Death Eaters," Draco carried on.

Hermione picked up. "We discovered Draco's funnel from the Dark Mark in his magic, and how it sucks energy, and how the compow connected our magical fields. One day, Draco freed himself from a Petrificus using the adjuncted magic, and next, we used it specifically to dissolve some Death Eaters wards."

"Did you, now? Well, well," Dumbledore interrupted, musing.

"Then I got engaged and Granger was hit with a spell whose incantation is called "Katatonici", we assume. Using our adjuncted magic together, although Granger was imprisoned in her mind and unconscious, we were able to dissolve that spell as well, even though we didn't know what it was exactly, and a little later, our compow dissolved my engagement bond."

"Your betroth…," Snape started out but was quieted by Dumbledore raising a hand in his painting.

"Hm, hm," Dumbledore mused again. "And what about the dream?"

"We had the same dream, both in the same night, right after Draco got engaged. It was about a couple that couldn't live their love because of society restriction and at that time, we weren't even in love and …" Hermione looked for help at Draco who stared away from them all toward the window, somewhat in thoughts about the fact that he might have been already in love with Granger back then. So much wasted time. But then, she hadn't wanted to accept it yet, at that time.

"Hm," Dumbledore said again. "Well, let's see your dream first and then we'll see what we can find out together."

McGonagall stepped up to her protégé and, waiting for Hermione's nod, pulled the silvery grey strand of memory from Hermione's cranium and transferred it to the pensieve. With a flip of her wand she projected the dream sequence to the surface, so that the late wizards in the portraits could follow as well without having to dive into it.

Draco pulled Hermione close to him, longing to touch her skin once more, and held her waist, his hands hidden halfway under her blouse, while they stood and watched Jana and Arion once more trying to find their right way. How he wanted her blessing for his dangerous mission, how he tried to convince her to go with him, how she refused and how he stole the kiss from her.

Standing behind her, Draco gave Hermione a quick peck on the ear when Arion kissed Jana and winced when Jana slapped him in return.

"Ow," he whispered. "You really have a knack for slapping."

Hermione snickered. "Sorry."

"Just don't let it become a habit. I rather prefer my cheek unslapped," Draco grumbled.

She snickered again. "Don't make it a habit of annoying me and you should be relatively safe."

"As far as I know, Potter and the weasel annoyed you on a regular base and did you ever slap them?"

Hermione contemplated. "Hm, no, I don't think so." She turned around in his arms. "It must be you, rubbing me the wrong way, then."

When their eyes connected, they said at the same time: "Friction." Hermione nodded. "I'll try not to slap you unnecessarily."

"That's all I can ask, I think," Draco murmured and turned her around, so they could follow Jana standing still in the passing of time after Arion's departure until she crumbled in shock and passed out upon hearing about his death and the dream sequence ended.

As soon as the vision faded away, Dumbledore chuckled and even Snape showed a certain amusement. His features were uncommonly relaxed, the constant scowl washed away. Death, with all the pressures of life taken away, did him well, it seemed. In a manner of speaking.

"Ah, what a clear message. It couldn't have been any clearer if it had said get back together to start working your magic," Dumbledore said.

"Well, excuse me, Albus, with hindsight everything is much clearer. But at the time of the dream, with the emotional turmoil of Mr Malfoy's engagement, I would think that the message was rather confusing for the two," McGonagall remarked.

"That's because they rather remained befuddled by mundane matters instead of putting their grey matter properly to work," Snape remarked, cynically.

"They are barely of age, Severus. Of course, they are lacking your maturity. I remember a young man of their age, even a little older than these two, who was rather "befuddled" by his attentions to a young woman," McGonagall scolded her former student and colleague.

Snape blushed, as much as a portrait can blush, and mumbled something like: "That's neither here nor there."

Hermione bit her lip. Each remark had been so typical for their teachers' behaviour, it wasn't even funny anymore, but she had to grin a little none the less. Snape's infatuation with Harry's mother was well known to her.

Draco took the load of being the constant nagger of her shoulders by bringing the focus back.

"We figured out a lot about the dream already, after the fact, once my engagement was dissolved, but just to confirm: Jana was on a higher social level because status in society is man-made and very subjective, right? My higher status as a pureblood and Hermione's status as a muggleborn means shite in comparison with the dimensions that really count in the grand scheme of things?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, Mr Malfoy. I would have chosen a less offensive wording, but overall you are right. It was a hint on the magical energy. In energy there is no good or bad, higher or lower. Energy is energy, it just comes in different densities and wave lengths. In that regard, it is all the same. The inversion of ranks in your dream pointed that out, societal ranks are not essential."

After a short (unnecessary) inhale, he continued: "There were many hints in your dream indicating that it is about energy and magic and that it has nothing to do with rational thought, starting with their clothing in the respective colours of your magics to her loss of consciousness. I'm sure you've noticed. There were also many indications to the fact that you should stay together to develop what has been given to you: the issue of her suffering over separation, his reluctance to leave, and his death with her subsequent paralysation, all hints not to separate. I say, given to you as in gifted: it is clear to you that your adjunction has been a gift, isn't it?"

Without waiting for their confirmation, which didn't come, because Draco and Hermione were dumbstruck, their old headmaster continued.

"A permanent separation, marked by his death in your dream, through Mr Malfoy's marriage, would have been terrible for you both. It would have been difficult if not impossible to work your mutual magic but it would also have thrown both of you off. How aware are you of the way your magical energies stand to each other?"

This they could answer. Draco said: "We know they are aligned. They flow as one, said my aunt Andromeda."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. So did Snape. "Oh, you talked to Andromeda? Good, good. But it is as I expected. Well, when energies are as aligned as yours, however it happened, you both would have been close to paralysed when separated for longer time, which is what the dream indicated. It was a warning. Something as aligned and balanced as you two goes off balance when the other half is missing. Usually adjunction partners are fine when separated but your case is special with your overall balance and alignment." He looked down into the attentive young faces turned to him. With a smirk, he carried on.

"There were also many elements from your real life to indicate the parallels between your characters in the dream and you, to indicate the fact that you two human beings shouldn't separate, independent of the kind of relationship you would develop, so you could work the magic."

"More than was necessary to notice," Draco mumbled, thinking about the slap.

"Quite," Dumbledore chuckled. "But do you remember when I told you about the magical flow?" When Draco and Hermione nodded, he admitted a little sheepishly: "Well, I wasn't quite disclosing the entire truth."

Hermione had to grin. Harry had experienced that quite well. It was what Dumbledore did. Always. Never the whole truth at once.

"Magic not only flows, it balances. It's an energetic force that balances itself out. You remember that I mentioned a calculation to measure equality of magic?"

When they nodded again, he continued. "Well, there isn't. At least, it's not to determine magical strength, as it is quite meaningless to speak of strength when you are comparing apples and oranges. You cannot compare a strong magical defender against a healer well, even if they are of equal magical strength. What the calculations I mentioned measure is the fact that between those individuals, there is actually no magical flow because their magic is satiated against each other. Their patterns fit like a puzzle, they complete each other. Therefore the magic stays, like stagnant water, like an energy pool, resulting in tension between the individuals, whereas in other individuals the magic flows to balance. The founders had the same issue. It is the very reason why they fought; but only Ravenclaw and Slytherin adjuncted because she was his match. Unfortunately, they didn't see their deep connection, or didn't want to see it, and separated over the admission issue and he left her heartbroken, although in perfect health."

"We knew about the balance of energy. My aunt told us all about it. She also mentioned that the carriers don't need to have equal magical levels because the magic levels out in the time preceding the adjunction," Draco updated.

Dumbledore carried on: "Well, she was quite right. But I'm sure you went through all the other signs and symptoms commonly associated with an adjunction, didn't you? The feeling of the magic in each other, the relief when re-united, the power increase with the extra magic?"

"Yes to the feeling and the power increase. But the relief is one thing we puzzled over because it didn't make sense from Lovegood's book. Andromeda said the energy doesn't need to be united. That it doesn't make sense to feel relieved, or that it was more psychological than magical," Draco pointed out.

Dumbledore sighed. "Well, energy in general doesn't need to be united, that is correct. But your compatibility contributed to the feeling of relief. The compatibility of your energy levels gave you the potential to align from the very beginning. Even if your alignment of energies only came to pass recently, I don't know when that happened,…"

Draco and Hermione exchanged one knowing glance. They couldn't know for sure but they were fairly certain when it happened; when Draco had brought her back to her apartment after St. Mungo's; when the compow had broken his engagement bond.

Dumbledore spoke further: "… when you fit energetically as well as you two do, the energy adjusts to the compatibility, to the fact that it is whole when you are in the same vicinity. Wholier than whole, so to say." He chuckled. "Whole in a sense that the combination makes more than the addition of two parts. Then, when you are not together, something is missing, you are out of balance. You both realized the out-of balance feeling of the partner, didn't you?"

Once again they nodded. "Not all adjunction partners are always so perfectly matched as you two. Normally, it is enough to match on the required energy levels, the ones necessary for the creation of the adjuncted magic. But you two seem to fit on all levels possible. Well. When you are so well matched, it feels whole when together. Do you understand the difference?"

"No," Hermione admitted out loud. This was too complex, even for her.

Dumbledore nodded. "Hm, how to explain?"

Snape intervened: "Ms Granger, do you remember how in potion making, the interactions of the ingredients for a blended poison make more than each ingredient alone combined with another could make?"

Hermione nodded and Draco murmured: "Golpalott's Third Law."

Snape nodded back with a satisfied smile. It was good to see his Godson being as well versed in potion making as he would expect from his best students. "Well, the same goes for energy when adjuncted. You can have two ingredients, as in two levels, one from each carrier and they interact very simply with each other, to create one specific thing. Or you can have many ingredients and they create an extra power through many interactions that is extrapolated more powerful and makes a dangerous potency. And you two seem to match on more than the one level necessary for the creation of an adjunction."

Dumbledore nodded in confirmation.

"And the adjuncted energy is silent through separation because the carriers don't explore it during the time and it needs both carriers' powers to work. It still exists, though. And because it is created to do its work, it, the created energy "wants" to be explored, "wants" the work done and moves the carriers, like an energy imbalance. It feels like a mood; as if you feel like doing something or not. The carriers feel relieved when reunited because the energetic imbalance is levelled. You two in particular, because you have an imbalance on more than one energetic level."

Hermione piped up, frustrated with the complexity of what should be a very simple explanation. "I don't understand. How can that be? How can we be so perfectly balanced? I mean, why Draco and I of all people? We used to loathe each other."

Snape snarled in reply: "Ms Granger, for a Know-it-all you can be incredibly obtuse."

"Hey," Draco snarled back, "If not for her, I wouldn't be here as I am right now. So, a little more cordiality wouldn't go amiss here."

Snape looked taken aback, being snarled at by his godson on behalf of another person. After a second of shock, he inclined his head to him and Hermione: "I apologize, Ms Granger."

Hermione smiled. "You're forgiven, professor."

Dumbledore looked on beaming. "With what I told you about the balance, what can you conclude for the two of you?"

Hermione wondered, stepping over to where Draco stood. "I know that we balance something in each other. But I always wonder, how can that be and is that enough reason for a permanent magical connection?"

Draco wound his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder, shaking his head: "We don't only balance each other, we complete each other. You are my perfect match, I told you that, ages ago."

Dumbledore nodded, still beaming.

"But we are not perfect together. We fight constantly. And you don't know anything about me, because we used to be enemies." She was aghast.

"That's not true. I know more about you than your friends want to see. And I'll have time to learn the rest," Draco mumbled.

Dumbledore tried to alleviate some concerns. "There will always be friction. That is to be expected because your magic is truly equal and aligned and as I said, the magic doesn't flow between you. So, the friction theory applies. But you complete each other like nobody else can. Magically and personally. A part of his personality is a very required part to your personality. Together you'll have unmitigated skills to work magic. The magic recognized that."

"You may need to adjust to his at times intimidatingly intrusive and grating personality but he seems to be the perfect counterpart to your overall accepting openness. Energetically, that is," Snape snarled, glowering at his godson.

Draco understood this to be the revenge for his rebuke from before and he glowered back at the dark haired man. "Say, if I had a portrait painted of you and hung it in the manor, will you be able to flit between frames?"

"Ah, Draco, miss me so much?" Snape smirked, happy that he gave it back to Draco.

"No," Draco shook his head soberly. "I need a new dart board."

Snape chuckled. Draco sent him one of his trademark smirks.

Hermione shook her head. It still wasn't becoming any clearer. They had thought with their knowledge from Andromeda about the energy, there was only the last titbit of information missing, the "what exactly does it do", and they would have had the full picture. But as usual, it wasn't that easy. Hermione glanced to Draco, who was regarding her thoughtfully, and asked the first thing that came to her mind in her confusion:

"So, does that mean we had to fall in love to stay together?"

"Not at all. Well, it certainly didn't hurt. It gave your mutual magic an extra edge. But the falling in love part is your own doing. You could have just stayed work colleagues and worked it together."

Snape added sceptically: "But the human brain is not made to be able to differentiate a perfect magical match from a personal match, or both, as it is in your particular case. You felt the completeness across all personal dimensions and your brain misinterprets it as emotions. Including "love"." He rolled his eyes. Pausing for a minute, he looked into their quizzical faces, his godson's and the woman with him. They couldn't be in love. They were so different. And he had loved Lily Evans, arg, Lily Potter. He was pretty sure that his godson was not able to open his heart wide enough to make room for another person. Draco had always been a snotty little brat.

"I'm not saying your brain betrays you. I mean it is more than natural for a certain … attachment to develop between carriers. With all the levels of energy you are and will be working with, emotions were bound to be amongst it. And as young people are so unrestrained, emotions fly rather high in general. A rather technical explanation, I'm afraid, but there you go."

Hermione was disquiet: "So, we feel as we are in love, because the emotional energy was over us because of our work?" She was confused.

Draco chuckled: "I hate to say it, but Uncle Severus was right, you can be obtuse."

She glared at him. He chuckled again. "Explain then."

Draco explained gently: "We fell in love, because we felt the completeness of the magical energy levels through the exchange all the time. And it felt so good. Thus, it felt so good to be with the person we feel this with. And so we fell in love because we felt how good it was to be together. Despite our differences. We had to overcome our reservations toward each other, but we felt pulled toward the completeness, the compatibility with each other. Even on the physical level."

Snape coughed to stop his godson at this point. He really didn't need to hear any physical details. Draco was known to have rather "physical" relations with the ladies. That he would take it up with Ms Granger … Perhaps energized from the adjuncted magic they had … Then he sighed: "Yes, Ms Granger has always been a very exact executioner of magic but the subtleties of things in creating magic, as in potion making, escaped her."

Draco glowered at his godfather's portrait. "I already told her that you were quite bitter that the star student wasn't yours, but this is not helping."

Snape spluttered. "Star student – what?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't give me that."

And for the first time ever, they heard Severus Snape laugh. A hearty joyful sound that made his chest rumble and that lit up his face. Dumbledore joined in.

When they had calmed after a few minutes, Dumbledore addressed his former students again, wiping his eyes (unnecessarily, but old habits die hard): "Speaking of the "physical level". You understand, from the hints in your dream and your talk with Andromeda Tonks that magical energy cannot well be rationally perceived, don't you? Therefore, what do you think how it is?"

"Through your senses." Hermione shot out, reciting knowledge.

Dumbledore nodded. "That's right. And how do you think adjustments and exchanges are being made?"

When they looked up clueless, Snape sighed.

"What would be something a pureblood would never do to a muggleborn under Voldemort's rule?"

Hermione gasped and Draco groaned and hid his face in his hands. "Touch," he mumbled through his hands.

Snape and Dumbledore nodded.

Hermione was horrified. "Do you mean to say that we touch because the magic makes us?"

Dumbledore shook his head and Snape groaned. "No, Ms Granger. You want to touch because it likely feels good to touch. It may even have lightened your conscience to have an excuse in the magic. But the magic just uses it to adjust and check the level. And you feel the flow of adjustment."

Hermione gulped. How could he be so sure it wasn't the other way round?

To distract from her shock and because there were so many more open question, Hermione mentioned something else that was on her mind. "Professor Trelawney just mentioned something about Draco being able to repay his debt, karmic debt, and in the dream, there was something about debt to society. What does that mean?"

Professor Dumbledore sighed. "Ah, Sybil, I suppose, has stumbled over a bit of truth once again."

He was interrupted by Professor McGonagall inhaling sharply. "Albus, after all these years, surely you cannot start giving significance to Sybil's babbling."

Dumbledore gave her one of his indulgent smiles. "Minerva, be tolerant with her. She has her place and purpose in the grand scheme of things as well." Snape grumbled something that sounded a lot like "Merlin help us" and McGonagall raised an eyebrow in serious doubt.

Dumbledore sighed again. "Well, as unfortunate as it is, and as young as he has been, Mr Malfoy has incurred a debt in associating with the negativity of Voldemort's cause. All who associated with Voldemort did. I warned Tom Riddle time and again, but he didn't want to see it, that his way to approach magic had its consequences. He sapped and coerced magic that shouldn't be and created negativity. And everybody who worked for or with him, participated in his negativity, his "debt" in the energy pool of the world. Professor Trelawney called it a "karmic debt" because it is an obligation that cannot be repaid with money, of which Mr Malfoy would have enough."

"I'm right here," Draco mumbled.

"My apologies, Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore smiled at him. "You understand that you have to make amends for your role in the conflict, don't you? Even if we could protect you from killing, well, me, you contributed much misery with your attitude against fellow wizards and witches and your aid to Voldemort's cause. In the grand scheme of things, so to say."

Where Ron would have dug his hands in his pockets and hid his head between his shoulders, making himself look smaller and sheepish, as if it could protect him, Draco stood up to this challenge. Hermione felt her pulse quickening when she felt Draco next to her stand straight, his head raised, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed. There was something imposing in his stance, despite the tension she saw in the way he clenched his jaw and his hands. She saw his pulse quickening on his neck and his breath flattening in weariness. But her breath hitched and her tummy tingled when he squared his shoulders like his dream counterpart Arion, ready to face his destiny. Would Ron have done that? Hermione somehow doubted it. Harry, probably, but she never had a thing for Harry, so that was a moot point. Get a grip, Hermione, she scolded herself. No swooning here. He's already coming home with you.

"What do I have to do?" he said with a sure voice and the tiniest of sighs escaped Hermione. He had come a long way. The old Draco would have whined and sneered that surely he couldn't be held responsible for the mess that his father had made of him. But there was none of that. Hermione took his hand and squeezed it, to another raised eyebrow of Snape. Draco quickly squeezed back but was too distracted to hold it for long.

"Well, my boy, you are already on your way." Dumbledore beamed his most joyous smile. When he paused, expecting them to know what he was talking about, Draco said quietly: "By working the compow with Granger." It wasn't a question.

Dumbledore nodded. "Right in one. Society as such would have expected you to marry a pureblood girl and have offspring and make donations to good causes and continue your traditional ways. I believe that theme was also in your dream. And that would have been good for stability in society. To go back to the old ways would have calmed the masses for a while in the aftermath of the war. But the powers that be have other plans, bolder plans for you, because going back to the old ways wouldn't repay your debt. For reasons of your youth and your legitimate doubts at the time of your "karmic" offenses and for the potential that you have, you've been given the chance to make up for it in this lifetime when the magic "discovered" your match for an adjunction. You will need to do something for the common good. I can see it from this side of the veil. And it is the very reason why you adjuncted with Ms Granger, to give you the means to make up for your errors."

"So, what exactly do we have to do?"

"Ah, Voldemort's threat is gone but the negative energy hole he created is not quite eliminated. You have to bring some more hope into the world to balance the sheet. Hope to be able to protect people against the next threat." When they remained quiet, trying to put sense to Dumbledore's cryptic words, he confirmed what he had supposed before: "Do I understand correctly that you had serious doubts about Voldemort's cause long before his downfall?"

Draco snorted. "How can a half-blooded less than human creature preach about blood purity, which would be the downfall of the very society he wanted to create?"

Snape piped in. "Why did you never tell me, Draco? I could have protected you."

Draco snarled. "I thought you were in with them, remember? Why would I have trusted you with my doubts? And then what? I could have watched from the side lines how he tortured and killed my mother?"

"We could have protected her as well." Snape spoke quietly as if with an injured man, shocked to hear once again that during his life few people had trusted him.

"Rubbish," Draco yelled. "And my father? Even though we are not very affectionate, he is still my father. You had no idea how much longer this war would have gone on. What would you have done, hide us like you hid the Potters? I had to play his game until I found a way out. There was nobody to help me." He exhaled sharply when he felt Hermione's calming hand on his arm. He looked down to it. "Except Granger. She helped in her own way."

Dumbledore nodded again. "And what she did for you was the reason you two adjuncted. You came to match, as simple as that."

Hermione and Draco nodded. "We figured as much. So there is no trigger?" Hermione said while Draco calmed himself.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Well, no. Once you've reached a certain matching energy pattern together, you simply adjunct. That's the way with all adjunctions. It's just so incredibly difficult to get the right matching patterns because only the magical energy "knows" what is right. That's the reason why they are so rare. In your case, Mr Malfoy, you were given the "tool" to make up for your deeds."

Hermione wondered with her eyes narrowed as well: "I am a tool?"

Dumbledore chuckled again. "Ah, Ms Granger, in a metaphorical way. But no, of course, you are no tool, but the magic you created together is."

"Hm," Hermione made. "Andromeda Tonks said it, too, that we had a powerful tool."

Dumbledore nodded. "And again, she was right. What else did you find out?"

"Well, by now, we know that we adjuncted to create a specific energy customized with something contributing from both of us, and that there is a purpose behind each adjunction, which would have to do with what our compow can do, we figure," Hermione enlightened her former teachers.

Dumbledore and Snape nodded, while McGonagall was stunned. "Is that the reason why these two adjuncted? But what could Ms Granger and Mr Malfoy in particular have?"

Draco jumped in. "The dream said her kindness and my touch with the dark magic. But we can't quite figure out what it is supposed to mean. The dark magic in me is clear but what does her kindness mean? How does that translate magically or energetically? What are we supposed to do with it? That is the main reason we wanted to talk to you. We've talked about it for hours and always came back to the same point until we figured that it is some kind of "energy parlance" for our skills or abilities, for the energetic pattern that we create. We circled around her acceptance of me and my focus repeatedly as well. But we can't pinpoint what powers it is supposed to give. Also, from the dream we know that we are supposed to create a shield, a shield to protect innocents, but what is it and how do we do it?"

"Very good, Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore conceded. "What do you think it could mean?"

Hermione groaned. "Sir, just tell us. We've been over it so often."

Dumbledore laughed and Snape frowned. "Sorry to disappoint you, but we cannot tell you upfront. There are some rules. We can only give you pointing questions and a few explanations. Otherwise, everybody would go and talk to portraits to fix their problems. But we can help you find out. Now, we might have more insight due to age but we are not omniscient," Snape explained.

"Oh, no," she groaned again. Draco took her against his chest and put his hands on the back of her head, kissing her temple. He chuckled. "Patience, Granger. Where's your spirit? Where would the fun be if they had told us right away? Rome wasn't built in one day, either."

She glowered up at his face. "How would you know?"

He smirked at her. "I can read history books as well, you know? You think there were no wizards with the Romans? It pays to know history in general. But you know that you can't gather everything up from books. Somebody must have written the book in the first place. And people make mistakes, as we can clearly see from Lovegood's book."

Dumbledore, immensely pleased to see the easy interaction between his two former students in front of him, sighed. "Ah, history has an awful knack to repeat itself. Every few hundred or thousands of years, there is a new maniac who thinks he can tamper with the rules of nature and create a superpower. And he will always find supporters who are stupid enough to believe in the same cause and hope for a bigger slice of life for them. And then they gain power until nobody can hear the critics anymore. But it always takes care of itself in the end, one way or another."

"You mean, even without Harry …?"

"I mean that muggles are like weed, they'll survive no matter what, as a species; unless nature eliminated them entirely. Energy is like weed, it will always be there. But in which form is the question. If Harry hadn't been there to eliminate Voldemort and he would have won, in a couple hundred of years we would have died out as wizards. Magic would have died out as a society, eliminated by the negativity, and at an enormous cost of lives. And that in itself is terrible. Every war and the cost of life is one of the most terrible things the human mind could think up. But there will always be survivors and they will carry on the species. Nature has its way to insure the survival of the species. There will always be muggleborns or half-bloods, singular ones. Coming together, they would after many, many generations turn into purebloods. Yes, what did you think, wizard were born as purebloods at the beginning of time?"

He laughed, if possible a little derisive. It was good to see that even Dumbledore had a limit to endure stupidity. "But we wouldn't have had our society anymore. Until history would have repeated itself and the wizards would have come together again and create everything anew, like we did thousands of years ago. Until the next maniac comes and tries to tweak it. And so it would have gone on and on. And it will. We diverted the maniac this time, but it is only a matter of time. However, we saved our society this time around and you two can help it stay saved for a few more hundreds of years."

Hermione nodded her understanding but dug her head back down in Draco's shoulder, cuddling into the warmth of his embrace. As much as it pleased him to feel Hermione press against him, the explanation reminded him of just how much he owed her. "We had a long night," he therefore said with a frown. When he realized how that would sound to his former teachers, he scoffed and added: "New Year's Party at Zabini's house. We showed my friends how good we are together."

Hermione groaned into his shoulder. It wouldn't do to bring up the issue with the rape and the arrest they made. Gallows had indeed picked Flint and Pucey up afterward. He had raised his eyebrows at the stage they were in but fortunately hadn't asked questions. They could tell McGonagall later.

Hermione embraced Draco's waist and squeezed a little for soothing contact. He took it, squeezed her back and gave her another kiss on her temple, looking over her head. Snape caught his eyes and raised a questioning eyebrow. He had seen plenty of body contact, not to say caresses between Ms Granger and his godson in the short time since they had arrived. That was most unusual for Draco. He had seen them kissing shortly after the adjunction and he had just explained how all these energy frequencies would have contributed to a certain attachment between carriers. And Draco and Ms Granger, incredibly, did seem to fit well. But had they made it to a full blown intimate relationship?

He cleared his throat to hide his disconcertedness.

"And what exactly did you show your friends?"

Draco sneered. "Uncle Sev, do you want to know how far our "attachment" goes? Yes, I heard you. People seem to fall in two categories these days: either they see immediately that we are in love and shrug and accept it or they think magic must have forced us to do and feel something we normally wouldn't. You seem to fall into the second category. Do you want to know if we are going out? Yes, we are. Are we in love? Yes, we are. As if all our talking about falling in love and completing each other wasn't enough, but I'll happily confirm it for you." He sneered deeply, and then continued his rant to his late godfather.

"Do you want to know if we stay celibate until we are married? No, we are not. We've been enjoying quite a bit of non-celibacy over the last few days since Hermione has been discharged from St. Mungo's. Rabbits come to mind. And although you know of my reputation with the ladies, let me tell you, this is different. All I say is compatibility."

When Hermione's head lifted of his shoulder, he looked down into her wide eyes. "Are you out of your mind?" they said. "Are you telling our former teachers that we shag like rabbits? Even though it's true?" Snape spluttered uncomfortably but when nobody said anything, Draco carried on.

"I took her to the New Year's Eve party at Blaise Zabini's house yesterday; and Flint and Pucey gate-crashed and were highly upset that I got "entangled" with a mudblood. We showed them to mind their own business." His sneer deepened further when he said "entangled".

Snape sent his protégé a sharp glance but kept quiet. If there was more to say, Draco would say it. But Draco continued were he had left off. He didn't feel as if owning up to his loss of control would bring them any further. And it didn't seem as if Hermione was so keen on telling his story either. She would let him come to terms with it on his own time.

"We visited Harry Potter's house the night before and met her friends, my engagement to Astoria Greengrass is officially non-existent, thanks to our compow, it broke the bond because that's what it does, …"

"Wait a minute, your adjuncted magic broke a pureblood betrothal bond?"

"That's what I said, didn't I?"

Snape narrowed his eyes at Draco. "And I understood you. You've already said it earlier today as well. I just wondered why it would break a betrothal bond? You are aware, I assume, that it is impossible to break a betrothal bond."

Draco scowled up at his late godfather and former teacher. "Because we wanted it to. Our compow does what we tell it to do, together."

"Ah," Snape said and leaned back in his frame, crossing his arms.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Don't you want to explain to them the nature of your question, Severus?"

Snape scoffed. "Not quite yet."

"Very well, then," Dumbledore said amused. "Please continue, Mr Malfoy."

Draco looked annoyed, but he continued exactly where he had been interrupted. "The rumours are spreading quickly, because we appear together and it has become known that I introduced her to my mother…"

"You introduced her to Narcissa?" Snape interrupted him again, highly alarmed.

Draco scowled again. "Yes, I introduced her to Narcissa Black Malfoy, also known as my mother. Why shouldn't I? I have every right to go out with Hermione Granger, as much as a Ronald Weasley would have; perhaps even more, because we are adjuncted," he said mulishly to the portrait of his dead godfather.

Snape wheezed being faced with the depth of their relationship. The implications. Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger as a couple? Being attached through intensive work was one thing, having feelings and a relationship and introducing a muggleborn to a pureblood family quite a different one. There was a certain pain in his chest. He was not on form anymore. At his age, his heart should still be running well. But then, he was dead. Oh, well.

"You are openly going out?" Snape said in a dead-pen voice.

"Only for three days, now." Draco replied curtly. "We haven't made it public yet. Some friends know and it will make its round but I had to make it clear that I was not engaged before it becomes publicly known. Because as soon as I take Hermione anywhere out in public the press will explode in our faces. I can already see the headlines: War heroine and her newest cause, the taming of a former Death Eater," Draco clarified, scowling, turning to Hermione who smiled at him

"Bravo, Mr Malfoy. You certainly have come a long way." Dumbledore smiled his genuine smile with twinkly eyes and clapped his hands. "You could have hid your entire magical connection, stayed entirely professional or done nothing with it, but you decided not only to work with it but also to explore it to its fullest. I repeat, bravo."

Draco was confused. Did he decide anything? Not really. It had just developed the way it had. He said so. "I didn't decide anything. It just happened."

"Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no," Dumbledore chastised him. "It may have been a slow process, perhaps even a sneaky process, but you did decide at one point, or perhaps more than once, that you wanted to be with Ms Granger. And that is very important, because your level of relationship may have something to do with the manifestation of your adjuncted magic."

Draco lowered his head. "Well, as soon as I got engaged and didn't see her for a few days, I knew that I couldn't leave her entirely out of my life. It was still a long way to love but I needed her with me." He raised his head again and faced Dumbledore straight on. "Now, tell me, the compow did that. Tell me, I needed her because the magic made me."

"I will do no such thing," Dumbledore chuckled. "Why would I lie to you, my boy? But I will tell you, both of you," here he turned to Hermione, "because everything is so much clearer this side of the veil, and I am allowed to give you little hints, that your, how do you call it, ….?"

"Compow," came from two mouths.

"Compow, then. I will tell you that your compow, that adjuncted magical power in general manifests in stages. Theses stages are dependent on the energetic pattern between the carriers, just like the strength of the power is dependent on the differences between the carriers. You know, not all adjuncted people are man and woman, not even both human at times. So, they cannot all end up in a loving, fully functional relationship. Some have to confine themselves to a professional relationship of some sort." He paused for a moment to see if they followed him. By the breathless wide open faces in front of his gilded oak frame he decided they were. "But with each deepened stage it unfolds another level of power. When you were reluctantly working together, you were able to use the basics, the power and the intention. When you discovered that you needed each other, you were able to break unbreakable spells and now that you love…"

"Yes?" Hermione clung to his speech.

"You will uncover the ultimate power of your particular magic through your union. Ah, I always said that love was the ultimate reason." Snape snorted.

"But what is it?" Hermione whined.

"Wait," Draco interrupted. "Trelawney said that. When you create a union, you will discover the power."

"And once again, Sybil Trelawney redeems herself." When he looked into three sceptical faces in front of him and heard a dubious snort to his left, Albus Dumbledore resigned himself to more explanations. "The ultimate power of your adjuncted magic unfolds when you create a true union."

Both Draco's and Hermione's thoughts darted independently toward the multiple "unions" they had done over the last few days, but that couldn't be it, could it? Both blushing disconcerted, they tried to find something in their memory that was particularly remarkable, above and beyond their remarkable shagging. Well, two nights ago when they couldn't stop and Draco had confessed his love …?

Hermione inhaled sharply. He had connected with every part of her magic, anchoring her, and she had been able to reverse her mode, to go from intake to overtake. With his help, she had been able to focus her magic and send it forward. Draco had done it to her. Impaled, anchored, fastened, she had overwhelmed him, body and soul. But he had seemed to enjoy it. He had tapped her innermost centre and reversed her habitual mode of sucking in. And, oh, it had been so good.

Draco caught her gaze. He was thinking about the same "union", she could tell.

"Would you be able to do the same without, you know…?" she hissed.

As soon as she's said it, she felt his magic trickling into hers. Electron by electron his magic trickled in and spread within hers, like ropes to tie down a wild horse, tying its abundant energy to pull in one direction, to encumber it enough, fastened to the soil. Hermione nodded in recognition.

They heard a chuckling. "Minerva, please, sit down. You look a little pale."

Wheeling around, Hermione saw her favourite professor sink on her couch. "I'm getting old," McGonagall sighed. "Traveling from Siberia this morning and then being confronted with these youngster and their new magic, it's a bit much. And they have a particular sturdy way to celebrate New Year's over in Russia." She shook her head. "But Oleg is the best there is, at the moment. Since Severus isn't with us anymore." She sent a sharp glance up at Snape's portrait. He rolled his eyes. "I just hope he can live with the English weather," McGonagall finished.

"I'm so sorry, Minerva, to have been murdered by Voldemort," Snape sniped.

Squatting in front of her, Hermione asked: "Oleg?"

Professor McGonagall took her hand and patted it between hers. "Oleg Ivanov is becoming the new Potions teacher. I was able to convince him." She glanced at her former favourite student contemplatively. "You know, Ms Granger, your magic feels different on your hands. Steadfaster. Grander. Not as diffuse as it used to be. You were always able to move a lot of magic but it was frazzled around the edges, due to your youth. And now it's sharp like a diamond. You've come a long way as well, my girl."

Hermione smiled. "Thank you, Professor. You can feel it through my hands?"

"I can feel it all over you, but most pronounced on your hands, yes." McGonagall nodded.

Hermione sent her old teacher a warm smile, and then looked over to where the little instruments still stood on their spindly legs on a table next to the couch. It appeared that McGonagall had inherited these instruments from the former headmaster.

Draco pulled her out of her thoughts with his question. "So, if it develops in stages, what are those and how were they initiated?"

"I'm glad you asked. Because we are allowed to give more hints if you ask specifically." Dumbledore chuckled.

"Well, you know that the energetic pattern needs to match and then with a lot of vibration the new energy is being forged. It needs to be sealed with an extra touch later, which in your case I've been informed has been a kiss?"

"You saw us?" Hermione was shocked.

Snape answered: "I saw you the night before the Death Eater invasion of Hogwarts, yes. When you sealed your mutual magic's creation."

Both Draco and Hermione remained mutinously quiet. It had been a very private moment they'd thought.

"After that, the power needs to be primed, it needs a certain direction. I believe when Mr Malfoy tried to alleviate your pain from a dark curse, he gave it the nudge toward its intended purpose. It took you a while before you started working your powers, when you discovered its uses. In the process you must have reached other levels, through touch, most likely, of your relationship."

When both Draco and Hermione remained quiet, overwhelmed by the knowledge they were receiving, Snape gave them some more. "And we are allowed to give you another hint," he said. "Ms Granger, do you know the history of the Petrificus curse?"

"Curse? It's a curse?" Hermione startled.

"Oh yes. A curse developed from a regular stunner by a grumpy old wizard called Blasius Xenor, who lived in the 17th century. He lived in the country side and had a beautiful orchard in his backyard. Unfortunately, his best tree stood right at the border to his neighbour's ground and when the time for the harvest came, his neighbour's children liked to take their share of the branches that were hanging over the border. Blasius was an old scrooge and so, one day, after numerous warnings and complaints to the parents of the little rascals, he attacked them with a modified spell that would immobilize them until he scared their parents out of their wits and given the counter curse. Fortunately, the parents were wizards as well and found the counter quite on their own. The love for your children is quite a motivation. Blasius reached his goal in the way that they moved immediately after. But they made a complaint at the Ministry that he had created dark magic and attacked innocent children and endangered the Statute of Secrecy and he was fined to pay a part of his harvest every year to the family whose children he attacked."

"Innocent children. Protect innocents," Hermione whispered.

Snape nodded. "Exactly. And you know that the marriage bond was originally invented to enslave people, a very dark bonding spell."

Dumbledore took up the conversation again. "And we can give you one more hint."

When even Draco Malfoy looked at him wide-eyed, he asked: "Do you know what dark magic is, what it does?"

"It draws the energy for its spells from the temperature of its surrounding and makes it colder. Andromeda told us."

"Yes, but in doing that, it also focuses enormous power on one point and exhibits terrible strength by doing that."

"Focus? Like Draco's focus?" Hermione whispered in awe.

Again Dumbledore and Snape nodded. "The hint in your dream meant the real dark magic that is still very prevalent, but it also stood as a metaphor for Draco's focus and his intrusive personality, just like your all-encompassing kindness is a metaphor for your transformational skills and your personality."

When both young people were stunned into silence, Dumbledore continued:

"So, Severus, what would you say is their respective specialty?"

Snape cleared his throat and said: "Well, for Draco it's very clear, it's the exact execution of magic. He is very precise, looking into the up-making details. For Ms Granger, I would say her specialty is the transformation of all magic. She can take whatever she gets and transform it. She is very able to embrace all magic and make it into something else but it's not exactly precise."

"Exactly." Dumbledore nodded satisfied.

McGonagall made herself known. "So, what does the compow do with both their abilities?"

"You still haven't figured it out?"

Two questioning faces blinked up at him. Professor McGonagall simply looked over from the sofa. He chuckled again.

"I'll walk you through it. What do you already know your compow can do?"

"We know it breaks spells, even unbreakable spells and unknown spells by taking the energetic matrix and dissolving it."

"That's right. And what are the most prominent spells, or curses, of Voldemort's dark magical time of reign? Since it's established that your powers will have something to do with Dark Magic."

"The Cruciatus"

"The Imperio"

"Avada Kedavra"

"In short, the Unforgivables," Draco finished.

"Because they don't have a counter curse," Hermione added.

"That's right. They don't." He paused a contemplative second before the last two words and folded his hands together, tipping fingertip to fingertip. "Not yet."

After a shocked second of silence, which stretched into a minute, where absolutely nothing could be heard, not even breathing, Professor McGonagall said weakly: "I believe a hearty lunch is in order. And a Schnapps."

.

_A/N: Whaaaaa! It's out, it's out. Now, tell me what you think._

_I apologize for the passages of pure explanation. I'm sure they will be hard to understand, at times. I wanted to explain the dream and the compow and it's just a lot of theory. Let me know which ones are particularly difficult. _

_But I went over it, again and again, and I tried to smooth it out but I can't take more information away. It's a bit like trying to explain colour to a blind person. Not that you are all blind, I'm just saying. Just be assured that it is supposed to be a bit confusing and that it will even out in the end. Maybe you could think about the fact that perhaps they felt relief because they really wanted to be together? Talking about blind people?_

_Just take away that they match. They are perfect for each other and with their skills they can move mountains._

_Golpalott's Third Law occurs in the Half-Blood Prince, chapter "Birthday surprises", when Harry whips out the bezoar because he can't do the poison antidote as Hermione can._

_And if you are still confused with regards to whether they freely fell in love or were magically "coerced" by their adjunction, wait for the next chapter (or chapters). Dumbledore has a parting word to say. They are not quite at the end of their journey. One more station._

_There's still information missing but it would have been too much in one chapter. It already became very complex (sorry, sorry), and I didn't want another Andromeda chapter, after which people were saying "Whaa..?". I decided to put in another chapter where they get to talk about how their relationship developed (and it became two), and finally, finally come to terms with their emotions and what they have in each other, up next. It's called "Tea for Two"._

_Plus we'll have to see what will happen to hapless Lavender, the stupid cow, excuse my French; after the interview. Ron definitely gets a chance to show his colours. _


	39. Tea for Two

_A/N: And the first mention goes to Enakei, thank you. Under no circumstances blame yourself for getting lost, it's quite complex. And Anon: not quite bringing back the dead but preventing somebody from dying would do, wouldn't you say? They'll make the Avada Kedavra useless when you can do the counter curse in time. Protection, remember? Once it hits, you're dead, that won't change. I think._

_Further thanks to Edwardloverx3, Lala, PalaisAthena (I suffer from that as well, that's why it took so bloody long to write this piece. And right now, I can't figure out a part of the final scene. And I already rewrote it twice. Drives me nuts), scv914, and Artemisgodess._

**.**

**Chapter 32: Tea for Two**

.

Before they left in their shock to go down to the Great Hall for lunch with Professor McGonagall, Professor Dumbledore had to say a few more words:

"It's seems to us, you are under the misconception that your emotions are tainted by the magic; that the magic is forcing or at least guiding you, and that you are experiencing your emotions through the magic and not the other way round. I admit it's the crux with events that happen together. The causality of things is not quite clear." He smirked regretfully, aware of their difficulties.

Draco swallowed, dumbstruck by the recent revelation, and asked: "So, then, how do we know which was first?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Well, it is a matter of belief. I can tell you, but you have to believe it as well. You are magically connected and the magic will be in you, your respective own and the shared one. You won't be able to escape the fact that you will always feel the magic connecting you and its effect on you. But you have to decide whether you want to believe if you determine your magic – or if you let your magic determine you."

.

Deeply shocked, they didn't exchange one word on their way down to the ground level. The subsequent lunch was a quiet affair because they were alone in the Great Hall. McGonagall sat in the middle of the teachers table, where Dumbledore's place used to be, whereas Hermione and Draco sat on her left and right, respectively. The food was as excellent as they remembered from their school days. Once they had recovered a bit from their shock, they answered Professor McGonagall's questions, although, funnily enough, Draco did most of the talking. And McGonagall was more than astonished to hear Draco Malfoy talk so freely. She was, of course, keen to hear all about the development of their compow and what they had discovered and how and what they had done with it. They also told her of the upcoming difficulties and excused themselves quickly after lunch because they had an interview in London to give.

They said goodbye to their old teacher at the front door of the castle that had once been their second home, Hermione with her usual cordiality to her favourite teacher but a little less exuberance than should be expected in view of their most recent discovery. They both gave McGonagall the promise to come back soon and tell her more about the development of their mutual magic. And their life.

Draco and Hermione walked down the path to the border of the Hogwarts property, side by side, closer than coincidental acquaintances would, but without touching. Draco sensed that something bothered Granger, and even though he was sure she would tell him eventually, he felt he would be risking a rebuke, if he tried to touch her. For now, they had an important interview to conduct, and they needed a clear head. Eventually, they would be able to tell everybody the whole truth. Once they had come to terms with it themselves.

They didn't see Minerva McGonagall standing under the door, watching the tall blond wizard and the brunette witch, until they disappeared around a bent in the road. Surprisingly, she thought, they looked absolutely right next to each other, although just a year ago, it would have been impossible for them to walk together. Minerva was proud of most of her students who graduated from Hogwarts, all of them worthy more or less. But some were simply special. For very different reasons. She wiped quickly under her eyes and turned back to her work.

.

Once they reached the outskirts of the Hogwarts grounds, they apparated back to London for their arranged interview.

Harry had let Hermione known, just before they left for Hogwarts, that he had arranged an interview with Parvati Patil by contacting her directly. Parvati had been over the moon to have the opportunity to interview Harry Potter himself, and Hermione Granger, and Draco Malfoy as well and excitedly agreed to do it the same afternoon. Harry said he had contacted Lee Jordan as well, to get the interview more widespread through the wireless and Hermione had praised his forethought. Her best friends had offered his house as the location and thus, Hermione and Draco were trudging across the green toward 12 Grimmauld Place.

Harry let them in when Hermione knocked on the door. "They are already here. It's all set up in the kitchen. Malfoy." He nodded to Malfoy, who came in after Hermione, and closed the door behind them.

"Ginny is furious that she wasn't allowed to come but you said explicitly, nobody else, right?"

Hermione nodded. "Right. We'll tell her right after the interview. You know what to say and tell and what not?" She looked at her best friend with her best McGonagall impression. Draco snorted. She could look intimidating, for Merlin's sake.

Harry snorted as well. "Do you think I'm daft?"

Hermione nodded again, her nervousness visible in the fact that she didn't smile at Harry and how she pulled on her fingers. Exchanging a glance with Draco as well, who nodded back to her and took her hands for a second to still them, she pushed open the door to the kitchen and entered first. Harry offered Draco to enter before him, which Draco took with a quirked eyebrow, and Harry entered last and closed the door behind him. Parvati greeted her with a squeal.

"Hermione. It's so good to see you."

"Hello, Parvati," Hermione replied in her nicest voice and with her nicest smile, as if Parvati had never contributed to the publication of a less than favourable article about Harry Potter's best friend. Stepping to the table, she reached her hand across and shook Lee's hand, whom she hadn't seen since the battle at Hogwarts. "Lee, how've you been?"

"Not too bad, Hermione, not too bad. Happy New Year. Good to see you." The wizard looked his usual dread-locked self. Perhaps a bit more sober than he used to be in the company of Fred and George Weasley. Hermione smiled encouraging. He smiled back at her.

After a few more exchanges of pleasantries and wishes of a happy new year all around, where Lee and Parvati were a little reserved toward Draco, everybody was settled around the grand table in Harry's kitchen. Hermione set next to Harry and Draco sat ostensibly on the other side of the table, so that he wouldn't accidentally touch Hermione in a less than professional way. After all, that was what they wanted to portrait, their purely professional relationship of powerful magic to throw people off. They were going to disclose their magical connection to divert people from the fact that they were lovers, to protect Astoria's reputation as Draco's former fiancée; and to make it natural to go out in public together without being hunted down each time. The disclosure was a little prematurely, they would have liked to show some newly created counter curses, but they didn't want people snooping into their personal lives, so you had to feed them small bones. Not that the compow was a small bone.

With a nod, Lee indicated that they were on air and he spoke the introductory words: "Dear Listeners, we are in the kitchen of our hero Harry Potter and he's sitting next to me, along with his best friend Hermione Granger, and no other than Draco Malfoy. They invited us for an interview to tell us some exciting news. With me is Parvati Patil, journalist apprentice at the Daily Prophet to lead a part of the interview, which will be printed in tomorrow's Prophet. Go ahead, Parvati," he generously left her the beginning.

Parvati jumped right in, her quick-quotes-quill at the ready. "Draco Malfoy, even though we knew that you were working with Hermione Granger, it is still strange to see how civil everybody is behaving toward you."

Hermione snorted right of the bat, before Draco could even open his mouth to answer. "Parvati, please, are we here to talk about the well-known fact that Draco Malfoy can be civil and that his mother taught him manners and that we all know how to behave?"

Draco looked lightly amused at Hermione. He understood that it was Hermione's way to get back at Parvati for the less than favourable article. "Go ahead, Granger, answer my questions, why don't you?" he said.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, are we here to discuss manners when we have so much more important things to discuss?"

Draco smiled. "Like what?"

Parvati looked nervously from one to the other. Hermione taking the reins out of her hands at her first question had confused her. And this friendly interaction between Draco Malfoy and Hermione was a bit weird, after all their history together. That had been the meaning of her question. And she had never seen Draco Malfoy smile. And of course, Parvati was well aware that after her last article, Hermione was only friendly, because she had something to say to the public and she needed a journalistic outlet. Parvati wasn't ruthless. She had been approached by Rita Skeeter, asking if she knew of any connection between her fellow Gryffindors and the Malfoys and she had naively said, if anybody knew, it would be her friend Lavender Brown because of her connection. And Rita had encouraged her to exploit that avenue and been mighty pleased with what she had dug up. But Hermione had endured worse slander in her time with Harry Potter. And if not Parvati, she would have found somebody else to be her mouthpiece to the public. Parvati understood, this was her chance to redeem herself in the eyes of Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, and if she mucked it up, she would have big difficulties. So, Parvati had to tread very carefully, and that made her nervous.

"Like how you stand on things after the war, your position as a former Death Eater, how your opinions differ from your father's. I mean, if people want to know something about you, they should know how often you told me that you want to help bring stability to the post-war world, and how we discussed how to go about it. Manners, honestly."

Lee sighed in his corner. "Ah, I love it when people take the interview in their own hands, without me asking questions."

Harry looked at Hermione sideways with a dubious eyebrow. He knew they wanted to show the professionally working team and how Draco had improved on his views and focus on the power of their compow and what they could do for the world and that it couldn't be wrong that they adjuncted, even though they were from opposite ends of the war. And he had understood as well that Hermione wanted to rub one in on Parvati. But Hermione was putting it on thick. It would bring up questions about their relationship. And they certainly didn't want to go too deep into that corner. He kicked her leg under the table to make her shut up. Hermione kicked him back.

Draco smirked, a well-known facial expression of his. It calmed the edgy Parvati because it was familiar. Then, he turned to her and exposed a grand smile. Hermione saw Parvati twitch nervously but focus on him, and sighed mentally in relief. Introduction made of Draco as the good guy. She trusted his ability to play people, but they had to be open-minded. If she came across as the less sympathetic interview partner, chances were that Parvati and Lee listened more to Draco. And that would show him in a better light. She was tired of constant prejudices.

"Well, as Hermione said, not only that we talked endlessly about how to improve the post-war world, but we've worked quite well on how to round up the remaining fugitive Death Eaters. We've created a spell that finds them in their hiding places, so we can send out Aurors to bring them in. The people, who have been involved in that work, know that I mean it, when I say that Voldemort's supremacy ideas were crap. Just to prove the point, working with Granger has been an absolute pleasure, and I regret that I didn't have the chance to do it while we were at Hogwarts together," Draco answered at length.

Harry looked suspiciously between the two. What were they playing at?

Lee posed his first question: "So, Malfoy, you're saying you would have consorted with Hermione at Hogwarts, if you had known her better?"

Draco raised an irritated eyebrow. "No, Jordan, of course not. While we were at Hogwarts, there was the whole issue of Voldemort's dogma that I was raised in and that, due to my parents, I followed to the letter. But if the circumstances had been different, I would have. Hermione is incredibly smart and I would have liked to participate in it."

Well, that sounded more like it, thought Harry. Even though it sounded strange that he called Hermione by her first name.

Parvati picked up the thread and led it toward the issue that would interest most readers. "In light of the recent article depicting you and Hermione appearing together and your recent broken engagement, what do you have to say with regards to your relation to Hermione, Draco Malfoy?"

Draco's face remained neutral. "Our personal relationship is not the topic here, although we are friendly. We wanted to give an interview concerning the fact that Hermione Granger and I are magically connected, through an adjunction, and sharing adjuncted magic of course makes you amicable to one another."

Lee as the one more interested in the magic, and less in the gossip, picked up the questioning again for all readers and listeners.

"So, it is true that you two are magically connected?"

Hermione answered this one. "It's true. We adjuncted in sixth year. Yes, before Voldemort's fall. Luckily, one can't see it, or we would have been in great danger. To explain to all those who are not aware of adjunctions: an adjunction is a combination of the magical energies of two magical individuals. They don't have to be human but they need to have a respective magical quality that combined will make a new magical power with a specific purpose."

There was an intake of breath from the two journalistic Gryffindors. Since Harry didn't snap for air, Lee asked: "Harry, you knew?"

Finally addressed, Harry nodded. "Yes, I knew. They told me after a while, after I saw them working together and wondered why it's so magnificent. It's beautiful. It's magical. It can't be wrong."

Parvati gasped: "You mean to tell us that Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger are magically connected to do something magical together?"

"For the common good, yes. It's big, we just found out ourselves." Hermione added.

"Why haven't we heard of it before?" Parvati asked further.

"As Hermione just said, we weren't clear what we could do with it until very recently. And we've kept our work a little under cover, trying to find out its purpose. How would it have looked like, Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger working together to track down Death Eaters? It was for my protection as much as Hermione's. And you can see what happens if someone gets it in the wrong gully. So, we have to tell now. But if we had told everybody right away, we might as well have taken out a public advertisement and warn all Death Eaters publicly," Draco snarled.

Parvati turned to her old dorm mate, set on getting her set of questions through: "So, Hermione. We all know Draco Malfoy to be somewhat of a ladies man. How is it to work with him?"

Focusing on him, Hermione said: "I can't complain. He's very focused, he's smart, he's clever, he's well read, he has lots of knowledge from traditional historical sources that would be hard to find in a regular library. He's diligent; he's a hard worker if he wants to be. He can also be quite funny, in a cynical sort of way. I can achieve very much with such an excellent work partner."

Draco could barely suppress a grin. Ha, Granger, he thought, you're cute when you try to flatter me. He expected the question to turn to him next, though, and his focus on his answer helped him to keep his face muscles in check. But not the temperature increase in his chest.

"And, Draco? How's working with Hermione Granger, who we all know to be over-achieving and a stickler to the rules?"

He snorted. "There's nothing wrong with obeying rules where necessary. Sometimes it's necessary to break them, in particular when you deal with hitherto unknown magic and the basic rules don't apply anymore. Granger fortunately knows the difference. She's not just smart. She's imaginative. She's creative. And she's powerful."

Harry gave her a sceptical sideway glance, hearing Malfoy sing her praises. But Hermione didn't even look his way. Her eyes were focused on the young man across from her. And from time to time they flitted to Lee or Parvati to see what they would be thinking. Hermione was in work modus and there was nothing to indicate her real relationship with Draco Malfoy. She responded to Draco's blatant flattering, though.

Hermione grinned, making it look like easy banter between work colleagues. "So are you."

"And more together with you." He smirked back.

Lee and Parvati raised respective eyebrows at the unlikely banter and flirting between the former Death Eater and the brain of the Golden Trio.

"Draco Malfoy, what does Hermione have to do with the fact that you broke your engagement to Astoria Greengrass?" Parvati took up the air between the interview partners and turned it into a question. If Hermione and Malfoy were so much as dining together, it would be the scandal of the year, heck, the century. And her journalistic animal got the better of her and she wanted the digs on it.

But Draco sneered, showing his displeasure at the turn the interview was taking. Lying blatantly into somebody else's face, and changing his mimic accordingly though, was child's play. The Gryffindors present were duped by his sudden change, except for Hermione and Harry, of course.

"Nothing whatsoever," he said snidely. "I set Astoria free," he said in direct opposition of the truth, knowing that Astoria would never contradict it, "... because she is much happier with Theodore Nott. If I had known she was in love with Nott, I would have never proposed. It was just not fair to keep her engaged to me. I will not stand in the way of their love. True love is hard enough to find these days. Few arranged marriages can achieve it. Some of our traditional ways are simply outdated. I will not abide to them anymore. The Malfoys will help to rebuild the wizarding world, but we will have to make some changes."

Draco spoke in short quotable sentences. Serving bite sized little snippets of information to the public over time would go a long way in portraying that Draco as the new head of Malfoy had changed.

Harry, of course, knew the truth, that Hermione very likely had very much to do with it. But even he was able to keep his face straight. If Malfoy really wanted to help with the rebuilding, with Hermione's help, then, bully to him. He wouldn't stand in their way.

"You've been working together how long, now?" Parvati guided the talk back to the couple with them.

"Since the summer," Hermione answered calmly.

"That's six months. And in all this time, there hasn't been any spark…? You know."

Hermione and Draco exchanged a glance that Harry knew too well. He had seen them exchanging those glances all night a few days ago, and in his eyes, they had been nothing short of smouldering. They had tried to make it look inconspicuous, but the fact that they even exchanged these stolen glances had told Harry enough. He just knew they were intimate, and that was a good thing. He had had the suspicion that Ron had not quite been able to give Hermione the groove she needed. Hermione was a woman, not just a brain, and it was very clear to him that she needed some counterbalance, just like everybody else. Being on the run with her, he had experienced everything from her that you can possible exchange between two human beings, except sex. They were as close as two human beings could be without sharing their bodies intimately. The change in her since Draco Malfoy had crossed that particular line was day and night to him. But on that day, in his kitchen, Hermione was playing it too well, playing it down, where a few days ago, she had admitted to him that she was falling in love with Draco Malfoy. What had happened in the meantime?

To distract from what would become too obvious if Parvati had observed it more closely, he threw in: "They are very professional. I've rarely seen a more efficient and proficient team."

The pressure taken off, Hermione was able to say with an angelic smile: "No, no sparks. Strictly professional."

Lee guided the conversation back to the magical part: "So, with all this power and magical connection, what exactly is it you can do?"

Draco sat back and took this question. "Well, the adjunction gives us extra power. Each of us is magically four times as strong as we were before." He left out the part that they had to be together for that to happen. It was better for everybody to believe it that way, for their own protection. "And when we battle together, I can sense exactly Hermione's next move and she can sense me. We are like a hypersensitive battle machine. It has come in handy when capturing Death Eaters."

Harry nodded in confirmation. That much was definitely true.

"Talking about Death Eaters, Malfoy. How do you justify helping Potter to bring them in, after you've been one of them? Aren't you afraid that somebody will do away with you in your sleep for being a traitor?" Lee clarified, somewhat sombre. He wasn't seeking a scandal. He truly wanted to see how much and how far Draco Malfoy had left the path he had grown up with.

Draco looked at him sober. When Hermione opened her mouth to say something to defend him, he held his hand up for her to hold her word. "No, Granger. I'll answer this. Jordan, imagine you were raised to believe that people of your skin colour were superior. After years and years of living that idea, you realize that you were mistaken. What would you do?"

Lee, as a Gryffindor through and through, said: "Of course, I would change my way of life."

Draco nodded. "Exactly. Why is it so difficult to imagine that I do the same?"

He left the question open for everybody present and over the radio waves to consider.

After a few seconds, Harry grinned and had an answer. "Because you were such a bloody good arch foe."

Draco snorted and said: "Piss off, Potter."

"Gladly," Harry grinned back. "Except it's my kitchen, so you piss off."

Hermione giggled at the two most important men in her life sparring jokingly. Parvati tittered nervously but even Lee Jordan had to snort amusedly: "I'll take it, when even Harry Potter can take this with humour, we should trust in Potter and Granger's judgement and wait and see. What about the traitor issue?"

Draco sighed. "It's not the reason why I'm helping to capture Death Eaters but it helps me sleep at night (and Granger does, he didn't say). The more we have rounded up, the less the danger, isn't it? And unless there is going to be a new Dark Lord, I'm not really afraid of revenge. There were always people who threatened the Malfoys for one reason or another. There is a reason, why you can't really get into the Manor except if a born or legally married Malfoy willingly allows you to enter; that hasn't changed. As for the attitude of the people who believed me in Voldemort's pocket, I'll work hard to change it. With Granger's help, when we've started doing what our adjunction magic is supposed to do, I believe, they'll cut me some slack."

Lee took that up. "That's right, Hermione, you said before that the adjuncted magic has a purpose, didn't you?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, that's right, Lee."

"So, then, what is the purpose of yours?"

Hermione and Draco snapped their mouths shut in identical moves. Harry looked from one to the other, and wondered what exactly they had found out this morning.

"Well," he ventured carefully. "They break spells. I've seen them take down immensely powerful Death Eater wards. And the tracking spell they did is excellent. Very useful."

Hermione focused on Draco again. He nodded. "We don't only break spells. And everybody can create spells. But we are going to create counter spells." She let this sit in the room, until Lee asked: "Counter spells to what?"

"To curses."

Lee nodded but was smart enough to know that Hermione wanted to be asked. "That's nice. We could use a few counters to curses. What curses exactly?"

"Dark magic curses." Again Hermione stopped. She was a genius. The way she answered the questions, Lee was sure every listener was hanging to their radio now, begging or cursing her to say what exactly they were doing. What bomb did she have?

When the silence became ominous, Harry spoke up again: "Hermione, you said, Malfoy took your Cruciatus, didn't you?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes."

Hah, what? Lee and Parvati spoke up at the same time. "How could he…?" "The Cruciatus, my goodness, you had a …?"

Harry raised his hand to quiet them. He had made the connection. "That's the power of your compow? To balance dark magic by creating counter spells?"

Hermione nodded again and Draco squirmed in his seat and grunted.

"You are going to create counter spells to dark magic?" He asked again because listeners couldn't have heard Hermione's nod. There was something more to it, the way Hermione was behaving. She didn't want to say it and even Malfoy kept mysteriously quiet as well. She wanted her interviewers or Harry to say it out loud. It would have so much more impact. He felt as if he was back in the wilderness with Hermione, running from the Death Eaters, with no clue where to go. Finally, Hermione helped him out.

"Yes, Harry. All dark magic."

All… It clicked. No. Harry's eyebrows reached the ceiling and Lee's weren't far behind. "Wait a minute," he said. "Even …?"

"Yes," Draco drawled from the other side of the table. "Even the Unforgivables."

The subsequent stunned silence was ear shattering and carried further across the radio waves to all listeners. Harry sank back in his chair and exhaled loudly.

And then a jubilant cry came from two voices. This was journalistic gold on top of everything.

.

Draco and Hermione were bombarded for another 15 minutes as to why and how this could be. They recounted the discoveries regarding their compow (except the circumstances as to how some discoveries had come to pass) and their talk with Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape (again, except for the relationship and love part). Hermione made it clear that a counter curse to Avada Kedavra would never be able to raise the dead, but it would give you a useful weapon to prohibit you from dying. You could fight to keep your light burning, so to say. The whole conversation was spiked with exuberant laughter from all parties, and then the interview concluded. Parvati packed up her paper and quill and was out the door with a huge hug to Hermione and a careful handshake but a beaming smile to Malfoy as a quick goodbye. She had an article to write before the deadline at 6 pm. Lee needed a little longer but even he understood that drinks would have to wait for another time. The remaining Gryffindors and Malfoy looked too overloaded to celebrate. It all was brand new off the press, so to say, and they needed time to settle, especially since they were going to be flooded with owls and visitors very soon, wanting the explanation from the horse's mouth directly.

After Lee had left, Draco made to leave as well.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked.

"The closest bar, preferably muggle. I need a drink and no stupid questions," Draco snarled.

Harry regarded him thoughtfully. He understood the Slytherin's need for quiet. But he was not going to isolate himself from them anymore, if he was fighting dark magic with them. "Stay here, mate. I'm going to get Ginny, who is likely on tenterhooks and paced a hole in Molly's carpet. You have to tell her the whole story before it breaks out over the entire wizarding world. Have a tea while waiting."

Draco looked at Hermione, who was perfectly comfortable in Harry's kitchen. Mate. Potter had called him mate.

"I'm not your mate, Potter. I refuse to be in the same position as the weasel. Tea alright with you?" he asked Hermione.

Hermione smiled brightly. "Tea would be perfect. But how about if you left us with one of the bottles of firewhiskey from Sirius' stock, Harry? Where's Kreacher? Do you think he'd let me do the tea myself?"

Harry grinned at his best friend. "Coming right up. And Kreacher is at Hogwarts, visiting Winky. I believe they got close while he was working there. So, you can do as much tea as you like." Hermione nodded satisfied.

Harry left briefly, while Hermione busied herself with putting on a kettle, setting the tea cups and saucers on the table and digging for milk in the cupboard. She knew Draco didn't take sugar, and neither did she. When Harry came back, he carried a bottle of Ogden's Finest, 1898. Draco's eyes widened. "1898? Potter, you have an Ogden's 1898?"

Harry shrugged. He'd never drink it if not with company. "Yeah, so?"

Reluctant appreciation developed over Malfoy's usually sneering features. "Even I only have one bottle left."

Harry shrugged again. "Take this one, once you opened it. I'll never finish it and it would go to waste. There was a whole box in Sirius' legacy. He bequeathed me everything he owned."

To Hermione's chuckle from the stove, Draco raised his eyes to heaven, hiding his shock that Harry freaking Potter had a box of one of the finest firewhiskeys in wizarding history, when he only had one bottle. "Potter, firewhiskey doesn't go to waste. You can leave the opened bottle in your cupboard for centuries and nothing happens. In-distilled stasis charm." He grumbled: "I'll need to teach you the finer points of enjoying life. Saviour of the wizarding world and doesn't know a thing about firewhiskey."

Harry grinned at him. "You do that. Open this one, leave me one glass. I'll go get Ginny."

Draco snorted. "Yeah, like I would be able to finish an entire bottle of firewhiskey in one sitting. What do you take me for?" He settled back down at the table while Harry left, and looked around. This kitchen was surprisingly cosy. He'd never been here, or if he had, he couldn't remember. Great-aunt Walburga had been one of the less pleasant relatives he'd had. He believed even his mother hadn't liked her aunt and so, visits hadn't been frequent, thank Merlin. Come to think of it, did he actually have any pleasant relatives? He couldn't think of any but his Aunt Andromeda. Pity, he'd never really met his cousin Nymphadora, even though she married a werewolf.

He opened the bottle of Ogden's with a swirl of his wand and looked around.

"Glasses are up in the cupboard, over there," Hermione said. She came to the table with a tea pot levitated in front of her and put it down.

A few minutes later, tea steaming in cups in front of them and the golden-brown spirit swirling in the glass, he ventured a question that had been on his mind ever since.

"Why did you come in, that night in sixth year? You could have just walked on to your dormitory."

Hermione turned her tea cup in her hands. Draco watched her. Something was on her mind and he knew he would have to get to it soon, or Granger would go off on one of her tangents, and he would regret it. "I couldn't. I was drawn in. You made strange sounds, distressful sounds, and I just had to see what was causing them. It sounded like something or someone needed help. And then you stood there in your bleeding glory," she said, rather subdued.

He snorted. "Perhaps my perfect magical energy constellation called yours. You have a knack of helping helpless creatures. I remember your crusade for elf-rights in fourth year; what a waste of your resources. And the way you always helped Potter and the weasel out." He rolled his eyes.

Her head perked up. "They are my friends. Of course, I'd help them. But perhaps you are right, since our being together seems to be determined by grander forces, I was perhaps made to come and help you." Draco detected a sad note in her voice. He sighed on the inside. Not again. Dumbledore had made it very clear that their feelings developed independently from the magic. Or at least, they were supposed to and they had to believe it. He definitely believed that he had fallen for this woman for good, whether by magic or not didn't' really make a difference. He was addictively in love with her and it hurt in his chest when he imagined, she could one day not be there anymore or that she could decide she wasn't that into him. Especially since she had gently forced him to his knees, magically. He had never in his life felt so safe than when Hermione had subdued him by pure will power. Well, perhaps he had wanted her to do that. But why was she so insistent that the magic determined her, when she had so much power over it?

He nodded in a slow move and replied to her last statement. "Yes, but not as in fate. We've been matched because of who and what we are, because of our skills and our personalities. If we had developed differently, you may have been matched with Theo Nott or the weasel or not at all."

She looked shrewdly. Nott again. "What makes you say that?"

He chuckled one laugh. "I had an interesting talk with Theo Nott last night."

Curious, Hermione said: "Do tell."

Looking down at his tea, with a spot of milk, he said: "Theo said something about how good you are and I confronted him about snogging you."

Hermione rolled her eyes. She wasn't going to let Draco feel every day that she was jealous because he had gone and gotten engaged and shagged his fiancée, although they should have been together. And all the other women he supposedly had. She didn't even want to know how many. What was it with his obsession of Theo Nott? "What has Theo done to you, for crying out loud?"

When he felt her scowling glance, he chuckled again. "Is it true that you would have liked to go further with Theo than you actually went?"

Hermione considered briefly, if she could be honest or if she would risk his wrath. But something seemed to amuse him and he was rather laughing than scowling, so, she decided for it. "Yes", she said. "I wouldn't have slept with him, but deeper kissing and his hands on me would have been nice."

Draco Malfoy smirked. "Well, from what Theo told me, he couldn't have done more, because there was a magical barrier in you that prevented him. He couldn't even get under your jumper, is what he said."

Hermione was a little shocked. That would explain why Theo had stopped so abruptly. She had been rather piqued at the time. "How so?"

Draco captured her glance with narrowed eyes but he smirked. "He said it felt as if you were already attached. He figured you were Potter's girl. But I figure, Princess, that you were already destined for me. And the magic booted all competitors." He grinned like the cat that got into the cream.

Like a bucket of cold water over her head, with the shock, it made sense. Hermione thought about the fact how Theo made her quiver. Perhaps it was an interplay of magic and attraction. But then, why didn't Draco make her quiver?

"Doesn't he?" her little voice nagged. No, she answered mentally. He makes me shake in anger or shiver in delight but not quiver. He doesn't make me nervous, he makes me furious most of the times. Or I'm shaking for other reasons, but not quivering. Perhaps he didn't, because he was the right adjunction partner. Hermione didn't doubt that she had adjuncted with the right guy for the adjunction purpose, she was only furious that the right guy had to be this one.

"But," her little voice couldn't keep its mouth shut one more time, "if you are truly honest, with yourself and with Draco, you didn't want to go further with Theo. You enjoyed his kissing immensely and you would have like to have him touch you, but at the same time, you thought about what Draco was doing and if he was ever going to need your help and support again and how embarrassing it would be if he caught you with Theo. Theo's blocking and the little sticking charm on your jumper came from your own subconsciousness, didn't it?"

Shut up, she snarled annoyed at her voice. I did not. To drown out the little answering snicker of "Keep telling you that", she asked irritated:

"Why are you so satisfied when you know that I could have adjuncted with Theo?"

His grin got even wider. "You couldn't. That's the whole point. I got there first. I snatched you away from Theo before anything ever happened." He couldn't contain his glee and crowed.

"Very mature," Hermione said with an eye roll. But she couldn't keep her mouth from smiling at his delight. He didn't seem to mind that Theo had snatched up his former fiancée. He cared that he had snatched her away from Theo or other potentials. Draco leaned back into the backrest of his chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him and folded his arms behind his head, exposing his delectable stature. He looked mighty pleased with himself. Being positively content was a rare sight for one Draco Malfoy. Usually, he looked rather impeccable and controlled. But then, he usually hadn't much opportunity to be so pleased with his life and to show it to her. So relaxed, he was just like any other young man. And a handsome one at that.

"What has poor Theo ever done to you that you so want to pull him one over?"

Draco grinned again. "Nothing. And I don't. Can't a bloke simply enjoy that he got the girl who wasn't interested in him in the first place, over competitors?"

Hermione looked down into her tea. That's right, she hadn't been interested in him. "Not in that way, at least."

She heard his movement but didn't see it until she felt and saw his hands upon hers, cradling them around the tea cup. And again she felt the tingling warmth from his touch. Ah, the magic. It was somehow ironic. Here she was, a muggleborn, and some people considered her not worthy to live in the magical world because of that, and her live was a constant service to the magic. It had even decided who she fell in love with, hadn't it? Over her objections, she thought. She couldn't' even follow her attraction and had to fall for the one guy who had bullied her in school.

"Hermione. Look at me."

She tried to raise her head but the pattern inside her teacup was so much more interesting at the moment. Draco raised his one hand to pull her head up under her chin, so that she could see his face at least. All glee was gone. She loved these grey eyes, she really did. And she had purged the little bit of happiness from them with one remark. It wasn't right.

She heard him speak: "I'm sorry for the way I treated you. You know that. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Every day if you want. Let me wake up with you and I'll say it first thing every morning." He let go of her chin and her head sagged back down.

"I can't change the past. I would if I could. I was young and impressionable and I believed my parents. It's not a good excuse but it is what happened. I can only make it up to you. From here on forward. If you let me."

Hermione believed him. He would, she knew that. She knew him that much. He had come around quite a lot. He was reliable in a way. Once he set his mind on something, he pulled through. She was sorry that she had spoilt his moment of glee. Even despite all his spoils, life hadn't been particularly good to him. Why should he be the one who had to grovel for the rest of his life? Life just wasn't right. He didn't need a girl that he had loathed all his childhood long and who wasn't able to straighten out her emotions, who reminded him again and again who and what he'd been. Draco needed a fresh start. She was too tired to give him that.

She just was so tired. With their interview, she knew that people would come crawling out of all holes to see and to speak with them. Everything she ever did was in the service of the magic. Even when he touched her it was to adjust the magic. Of course, Draco Malfoy would never touch her just because he wanted to. It would have to have a purpose. She was so longing to just get away from everything magical, back into the muggle world and just take a break. Maybe find her parents in Australia and get far away from everything. But that would hurt Harry. And Draco. As strange as it was, she still had feelings for Draco Malfoy. And he wouldn't understand, as obstinate as he was. So, she couldn't even have full saying in her own life because she would hurt her friends. And this man across from her who made her heart beat a staccato rhythm whenever he came too close to her. Too close.

She sat back in her chair and pulled her hands away. She saw the disappointment in his eyes that she distanced herself.

"No, it's alright. You don't have to do that." She gave him a thin smile.

He scrutinized her with her sceptical, narrowed eyes. "What's wrong with you, then, Hermione? Shouldn't you be happy, now that we have our work cut out? No more digging in the dark, no more what ifs. We know what we are supposed to do."

When she didn't answer, he put one more on top. "And you got the most sought after guy on top of it."

That pushed her out of her thoughts. Eyes blazing, she blurted: "Excuse me?"

He smirked. "Well, I don't want to brag but I am one of the most eligible bachelors in the wizarding world. Even if you don't read Witch Weekly, praising my handsome looks, I'm sure it came to your attention."

She closed her eyes before she would blow her top. He couldn't know, it would be unfair to yell at him. She opted for hissing instead. "But what if I didn't want him? What if I had wanted Ron? Or Theo? Or some other guy that never made it past my doorstep because I was already "attached"?"

His ego was big enough that he didn't take this as a hit. He understood that Hermione was struggling once again with the idea that her life always served the magic and not the other way round. He knew it wasn't because she didn't want him. She did. But she wanted to have had a choice. That was her perception. He was a little annoyed, though, that she didn't want to take it into her stubborn head that their feelings had developed separately from and not through the magic. "You had him. It didn't work out. I don't blame you," he scoffed.

She rolled her eyes. When would he ever go easy on Ron? "What if it didn't work out because the magic made me, just like it kicked Theo when he kissed me?"

"Are you really on that again? You heard Dumbledore. You have to believe that the magic does not make you."

"Yes, well, I don't," she yelled and then looked quickly down at her tea again, avoiding his eyes.

He glanced her way for a minute with eyes narrowed to slits. "You don't want to. Your stubborn head is clinging to the idea that the magic determines you. You want to make yourself the victim, because you are afraid of owning up to your feelings. Poor Hermione Granger, always a servant to the magic. You want to justify why you feel out of control. We've been there before, remember?" He moved his head closer. "That was when we "discussed" insanity. My prick was hurting after that."

Hermione looked up. "That's just the thing. All we ever do is shagging. That is so not me. What happens when I become myself again? What happens when the novelty wears off? What will we do when we find that shagging is not the answer to everything?"

He barked a laugh. "Not bloody likely. But if ever, we'll find something else. I fully trust your creativity. And mine. And until then, I'll enjoy it."

Pushing her tea cup aside, so she wouldn't tilt it over, she rested her head on her arms. "I'm so tired. Do you have any idea how many people are going to beleaguer us, now that it's out that we are adjuncted and what the purpose is? I've been in the spotlight for years, accompanying Harry. I just want to live."

"Nobody says we'll have to start working on it right this moment or tomorrow. Take a break. Go to Australia, find your parents, get away from it all."

Her head shot up. How did he always know what she'd been thinking?

He smirked. "Thought about it, didn't you? I can tell. You become very quiet when you think about your parents." He reached over the table to stroke her cheek. "Go. I'm not stopping you. Maybe we could go together and do the dating down under without the press hunting us down at every corner of Diagon Alley. I don't think I'm quite as notorious down there." He grinned cheekily.

Hermione huffed a laugh and then wiped her face in both hands. Why didn't she want this wizard who was so right for her in every area of life? His wit, his intimacy, his pushing her, and he loved her, didn't he? Perhaps she had to separate him from his name and just look at the man? But that was incredibly difficult. And she felt she'd had no choice, that's why.

"How can you resign yourself so easily to the idea of being with me? Of being connected with me? After all you've spouted over the years, how much you despised me?"

"I didn't despise you. I told you that. Well, maybe in the beginning, when you sided with Potter. It made you absolutely unavailable, the way you always clung to Potter like the pest, even if one had disregarded the muggleborn issue."

He ignored her biting reply of: "He is my friend. I told you what he means to me. He needed me as much as I needed him. And don't tell me you didn't hate me, because that's all you ever showed, deepest disgust for me."

He ignored it, because telling her had clarified to him, how he had always tried to rile Granger up and why. He had wanted to see her enraged. He had wanted to see her passion, her emotions, her attention directed towards him and it had always been so hard to get her to do that. She had always focused only on Potter and Weasley. Even though he hadn't really liked her at that time, he wondered if maybe it had been because he couldn't have her. His mind was an exceptionally strong force, even in lying to himself. But he wanted to see the same thing now. And she shut herself off and tried to think it all through and he was so sick of it.

He sighed. "Hermione, you know why I say things like that. I didn't have a crush on you or anything, but you were on my mind, especially when I saw you in the company of Potter. He was my rival, on the Quidditch pitch, and in classes, even though my grades were far superior to his. He was my nemesis and he had you. I wanted your attention but you always focused on Potter. And Weasley. The air bristled when I got you riled up and it felt so energizing. And it only got worse after you slapped me." He sneered, thinking how undeservedly Ronald Weasley had received what he had always wanted. Her attention, and plenty of it. "I mean, even Pansy knew that I thought about you. She said you had always captured me. And it's true."

"What did you want my attention for?" she demanded quietly, surprised.

He shook his head. "I don't know, I just did."

"The magic again, then," she chuckled sarcastically. "What other reasons would there be?"

"Hermione, will you stop harping about the magic? Magic chooses you, like a wand chooses its carrier, because we now know it balances the energy in the world. You can guide it, channel it, but you can never force it without suffering dramatic consequences. It becomes a fitting part of you, and you may as well blame your stubbornness forcing you to do something, or your principles. It comes to you matching your personality. That may be one reason why they don't start magical education before age eleven, to give your personality time to develop. But it is a part of you. It would never do anything to you that would go against your nature. Did you force yourself when you fell in love?"

"I rather thought that we connected on the animalistic level because energy is not perceived with the conscious brain. And then our brains and hearts simply caught up with what gave us so much pleasure," Hermione explained quietly.

"I fail to see a problem in that." Draco exclaimed, exasperated. "If it was the only way we could connect as human beings, because of our past and prejudices, what would be wrong with it?"

"It isn't part of my personality, that's what's wrong with it. It isn't natural to me to connect with a man by shagging him. That's not me. I'd rather connect on the intellectual level." She shook her head.

"For Merlin's sake," Draco snarled. "That's why you had a soft spot for Ron Weasley, was it?"

When she winced, recognizing the truth in his words, that she might be entirely wrong about herself, he rambled on. "It has to be part of my penance to fall in love with this stubborn woman. Gawds, but I must have been seriously deep in debt to be so punished." When Hermione looked hurt at his shout, he took her face in his hand.

"Did you ever consider, woman, that perhaps it is you and you hadn't found somebody to live it out with, previously? Don't you know yourself? I can tell you, from the times we've been together, that there was nothing "unnatural" in you, nothing that "wasn't you". Whatever you did, it came from the heart, and I was delighted to have such a woman with me, who was honest in what she enjoyed and responded and gave back honestly. Merlin, Granger, but you are the most infuriating woman on the planet, to not know that."

Hermione was unsure how to react to that. Was he enraged or just shaken up? She pulled her face away.

"I tell you what I always wanted to see in you. Your fury over my insults, your fierceness in defending Potter and Weasley, spitting in anger at me."

Hermione was taken aback. "Why did you want to see me angry?"

"Because it looks so passionate, damn it. With your reddened cheeks and blazing eyes, can you imagine where else you would have that?"

Hermione blushed. "You were eleven when we started rowing. Don't tell me you had any fantasies about me at age eleven. Urgh."

He shook his head. "Not knowingly, and not at eleven, no. And I had no fantasies about sleeping with you, ever. I promise. Well, not until we actually started doing it. But I wanted this passion in you for me. It drove me nuts that Potter and Weasley got to see it every day, aimed at them, but not I. Mother of Merlin, but I hated him for that," he all but spat, pulling his hand through his hair.

Hermione shook her head. "I can't believe that. Snape said that it's hard for the human mind to differentiate the magical pull from the emotional pull and is frequently misinterpreted as attraction. It can't be right."

Draco let his forehead fall into his hand, resting on the table top. "Why me, why me?" he whimpered. "Why do I have to get the one woman who I have to convince that her emotions are genuine?"

Hermione took it lightly. "Oh, don't be such a baby. Why do want me anyways?"

Draco's head snapped up and Hermione was a bit afraid before the glance she received. An infuriated dragon was nothing against the scorn in Draco's eyes. She gulped.

"Because I love you, damn it. Get it in your square head. The magic has yet to be invented that can force a Malfoy to fall in love, genuinely. I am not being enchanted. I've found the woman I love and I fully intend to spend my life with her."

"How can you be so certain that this is it?"

"I'm not. Well, I'm certain that you are the woman I love. As for the lifelong togetherness, only time will show. As it is with every-bloody-body else." He shouted the last sentence. Hermione withdrew a little. So much passion from Draco Malfoy. Oh my.

"But I intend to go that way. And I would appreciate if you set your head straight and decided for the same thing. It would be a lonely road if you didn't walk it with me."

"Draco, I don't know if I can do that," Hermione whined. "Eternal commitment is a tough decision."

"What's so tough? Do you like working with me, our compow, the exciting magic?"

"Yes," Hermione admitted quietly.

"Do you enjoy my company, the way we act and tease and argue?"

"Yes."

"Do you like what we do together in the bedroom?"

"God, yes," Hermione moaned and hid her blushing face in her hands.

"Then why in the world can you not imagine to have simply fallen in love with me?" he asked quietly.

Hearing him, calm, she wanted to just reach out. Why? Why couldn't she not just commit and see where it carried her, as she had already decided before? Because every time she had done so, she had received new information that made her think again that the magic made her. Or possibly could. And she had to consider all options, didn't she? Didn't she?

"I don't know. I need time to think," she whimpered through her hands.

"No," he snarled. "You've done enough thinking. It's time to stop. I'm all for using the immense brain given to you, but stop over-analysing everything. Did you hesitate to go on that journey with Potter? No, you didn't. I'm sure you were prepared but you just up and went. But that's just it, isn't it? You would go with Potter into danger but not with me into a situation that does not mean live or death, because it's me, isn't it?"

When Hermione kept quiet in discomfort (he wasn't wrong), he raged on: "Apropos given to you: remember what Dumbledore said? The adjunction was a gift."

"Yes, I heard him, but how did he figure that?" Hermione shook her head in doubt.

Draco was so short of snapping. "Arr, how can you not understand when life is giving you a reward?"

She chuckled humourlessly. "What, I'm your tool and you are my reward?"

He ranted on. "You are not my tool, the compow is. You are the one wielding it with me, the power. And you will bloody well grow into it, for Merlin's sake. I will not work with a sappy woman who doesn't know her own worth. And not I am the reward but the entire package is: the compow, what we will do with it, that you are connected to me, that we've fallen in love, and how we fit. When we've found the counter spells, you will be more famous than Harry Freaking Potter, in your own right. Books will be written about you."

Hermione rolled her eyes to heaven. "I'm already famous because I helped Harry."

Haaa," Draco cried. "Severus was right, you can be obtuse, incredibly so. You've got Draco Effing Malfoy at your feet, devoted to you, and you question if this is a reward or not? Do you want to poll the witch in the street if she would want Draco Malfoy or not? I'm pretty sure what the outcome is going to be. I'm just not so sure if I want to go with all these women who would want me, because I'm already in love with someone. Are you effing insane, woman? I'm sure the magic made a mistake, I can't possibly be connected to a woman who is so effing stupid," he raged.

"I'm not stupid," Hermione blared at him.

"Could have fooled me. Then stop pretending. It's creeping me out," he snarled.

"Hmhm," came from the door where Harry and Ginny had followed their discourse for the last few minutes. They had considered sneaking quietly out again and leave these explosive two to their devices. But they were a bit uncertain if that would be advisable.

"Piss off, Potter, we're busy. I have to pound it into your best friends' head that she really is in love with me and not under the influence of magic."

Harry and Ginny raised an eyebrow at Malfoys brazenness, ordering Harry out of his own kitchen and claiming that Hermione was in love with him, but when Hermione sent Ginny a pleading glance to save or at least support her, an evil grin spread over the youngest Weasley's face and with an "Come on, Harry" she pulled Harry with her out of the kitchen.

"Do you think that's wise?" Harry whispered when she had closed the kitchen door behind them. "They are going to kill each other. I'll have to explain to Kingsley why I have Malfoy's dead body in my kitchen."

Ginny grinned. "Don't be silly. Didn't you hear him? Have you ever heard Draco Malfoy admit to be at somebody's feet and to be "devoted"? And no, I certainly don't mean Voldemort. He's trying to get around Hermione's stubbornness, and good luck with that. I think, he's the only one who can, besides you."

"And you," Harry added. "You may have to put in a word or your foot down, if Hermione keeps torturing poor Malfoy."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Oh, somebody give me a calendar because I need to mark the day. "Poor Malfoy", I don't believe it, Harry. But I wouldn't be surprised if he either proposed by the end of their "discussion" or if they did something indecent on the kitchen table."

Harry blew up his cheeks in uncertainty. Letting the air out, he said: "I hope you're right, Ginny." After a minute of consideration, traipsing after Ginny up the steps to his living room, he said: "Eww, I'll have to get a new kitchen table, then. Pity, I liked that one. Hm, maybe Malfoy will want this one."

Unbeknownst to the couple in the kitchen, that Ginny had called her number, Hermione picked up the conversation again, as soon as Ginny had closed the door behind her, as if they hadn't been interrupted at all.

"You're only "devoted" to me because of the tingling of the magic in you, the energy flowing through you, when we touch. It has nothing to do with me."

Draco stood up with his next words in agitation, and Hermione followed suite, not wanting to have him yelling down at her.

"Right, I only sat at your sick bed for three days non-stop because I get a kick out of it, and I had nothing better to do. Do you listen to yourself? That didn't even make sense. I expected more from you, Hermione Granger. For fuck's sake. When you touched me the first time in the classroom, we weren't adjuncted yet and it still felt nice. So, perhaps the magic uses our touches to check how deep our feelings and relationship progressed, but that doesn't mean it makes us touch. And perhaps the sex is so spectacular, because every touch tingles like a mini climax, but that doesn't change the fact that it is spectacular, and I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Who says that you didn't touch me because the magic made you? You would have never touched me on your own free will, because I'm a mudblood," Hermione yelled shrilly.

The louder Hermione got, the lower went Draco Malfoy. And the other way round. They really balanced themselves in everything. Unbelievable. "I'm so terribly sorry I diminished your self-esteem so much with my teasing that you can't even believe that somebody would want to touch because of who you are," he all but hissed.

"Don't give yourself too much credit" she snarled.

"What, you did this all on your own? Wow, you're one powerful witch, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am, muggleborn or not."

"That's my whole point, bloody hell." He slapped the table with his flat hand. "What did you not understand in the part that said we match perfectly? Your power and my power, equal. That the compow unfolds its power with the deepening of our feelings and not the other way round?"

"How can you be so sure that it's not the other way round?"

Draco Malfoy had it. This stubborn witch was driving him to extremes. He had never yelled so much in one sitting. Slytherins didn't yell, normally. They hissed, matching their symbolic animal. But this witch made him want to tear his hair out, and he could only counteract this feeling by raising his voice. Bloody hell. He had to make her see.

"Because I wouldn't be here if not for you. I would be dead if you hadn't found me that night in the classroom. I would have either broken down or been killed by Voldemort for my failure, because I would have never made it. I was already despaired. I was too bloody young. If not for your input, I would have never been able to fix that bloody cabinet. And the magic can guide potentials as much as it wants, your compassion that night saved me. It kicked off the entire process. If I had died, you could have adjuncted with another potential and create something else, or not and the chance would have been missed, and you would have had a quiet boring life with the weasel and wondered what was missing after all the initial excitement in your life. This is how the energy acts, did you not understand? It finds two people who match for some reason and gives them potential and hopes for the best. How much the carriers make out of their potential is entirely up to them, and dependent on how their relationship develops. But it was you who pulled me back from the abyss, not the fucking magic." He sagged back down on his chair and burrowed his head in his hands

"Your compassion is, you are the key to all of it. How can you not understand it?"

Seeing him so at the end of his tether, almost the same as the night in the classroom, triggered Hermione's compassion once again. She had cared enough to offer to take his burden on that day, and she cared now.

Hermione came around the table and stroked his head. He turned quickly and pulled her in his lap, burrowing his head in her neck.

"Please understand, Granger. Please understand that it's you, and not the magic," he spoke into her skin.

Held tight on his lap, his arms around her like vices, Hermione Granger held his upper body and felt it expanding with every upset breath he pulled in. But she also felt his magic trickling into hers, clinging to her, holding her to him, and holding her together at the same time. She needed this. He aggravated and infuriated her, propelling her forward, but he held her together like nobody else did as well.

Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger – together – the Death Eater son and the world famous muggleborn best friend of Harry Potter – absurd. Even though they had shared their bodies. But everybody could shag, couldn't they?

She stroked her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and set her forehead against his. "I need more time. You need to convince me more, that you really love me and not the magic in me; stop my incessantly rambling mind." She felt the air go out of him and the proud Draco Malfoy deflate.

Draco Malfoy loved this woman on his lap. He felt his heart opening up every time she came anywhere near him. He could never miss this feeling. And it was tied to her. He would have never thought he would, and it had been a long time developing and then explosively braking out of him, but he did love. And it was only due to that fact that he simply exhaled and nodded against her forehead, a very untypical Malfoy behaviour. Conceding ground wasn't something that Draco Malfoy had ever done. Usually he stood it. But he would do it this time. This was too important to mess up with his usual self-righteousness. He could still go back to that tomorrow. Today, he would give this woman what she needed: more time.

He nodded once more and then said hoarsely:

"Do you think, we should call Potter and Ginny to tell them our story? I do want to go home at one point."

.

_A/N: Alright, the talk continues with Harry and Ginny in the next chapter. There's more information to cover._

_Let me know what you thought of this one. Anybody wants to guess what's wrong with Hermione (nothing too serious, just a fairly normal psychological process that needs to be resolved)? The solution, or more parts of the solution in the next chapter, hopefully next week._

_Cheers_

_M_


	40. Believe

_A/N: Sorry, guys, once too much? Well, in this chapter, you'll find out why she's undecided again. And in the next chapter, she'll figure it out, I promise. So, enjoy._

_Yay, nikki98, thanks for first review (I know, right?). And (), kc5534, Edwardloverx3 (thank you, thank you. For this chapter I actually agree with you. ;-)) Not so sure about all the other ones, and the next one is definitely giving me plenty trouble.), PandaLily, thank you, thank you, Enakei, yeah, I agree, and I already know that it'll clear up very soon, so I'm more patient ;-)) And sorry, Anon, I had to hold this back a little because the next chapter is not finished. Last night I finally figured out how I am going to write it. So, here you go. You have impeccable timing._

_I still couldn't fit everything I wanted into the last chapter where I really wanted them to explain to you all, what has been going on. It didn't work out. The chapter took another turn. For this chapter, I thought that Hermione needed to voice her thoughts, because Draco gets his time after this conversation. But then I realized that if she'd been blind to her issue all this time, why would she be able to voice it now? So, I had the genius idea to have Ginny tell this part. You'll see how brilliant it was. Harry gets to say something as well. Hero of the day, once again, our Harry. And Hermione can finally come around. She and Draco will tell the story in the next chapter._

_I shouldn't pat my own shoulder but I can't help express how very pleased I am with this chapter. It was a long time coming, I tell you that._

**.**

**Chapter 33: Believe**

**.**

**Ginny's POV:**

When Hermione called us in, I was drawn like a bow. There was something iffy going on between Hermione and Malfoy. From what we had overheard, he was in love with her (as unbelievable as that is and for him to openly admit it, too) and from knowing her, she was too, but she wouldn't commit to it. In her immense brain, she was calculating the risk of falling, I figured, falling for good for an unlikely candidate as Draco Malfoy, despite all evidence to the contrary. I had no idea what exactly her calculations included but I was sure it was immense and mind-boggling, alas, her confusion.

I loved Hermione to death. She had been there, helping my Harry, and helped to bring him back to me. I was never jealous of her, although I knew that she and Harry had been out on their own in the woods, and I know that accidents can happen, especially in desperation, and after Ron had abandoned them. And he had not been officially dating me, for good reason. He wanted to protect me. Harry always wanted to protect others. And so did Hermione. This time, when we met in Harry's kitchen, she wanted to protect herself. For once, she was not going to risk her head for somebody else, it seemed. But it confused her to no end.

Anyway, nothing ever happened between Harry and her and I was glad. I would have hated to hate Hermione because she stole Harry from me. Because knowing Harry, he would have stood by Hermione, no matter his feelings for me. I knew that he loved me; as much as I loved him. I knew it like my name. But he would have denied his own happiness to be there for Hermione if she had needed it. That's the way he was. And Hermione was the same way. Especially the denying her own happiness part. Perhaps for different reasons.

Well, when she walked in front of us down to the kitchen again, after picking us up in the living room, I saw the tension in her slumping shoulders. Hermione was a strong woman and her posture showed it. She always stood erect, except if her book bag was pulling her down. For her to slump, she had to be extremely exhausted. Perhaps not physically, but emotionally. Or both.

When we walked into the kitchen, Malfoy sat in his old chair, waiting for us. He turned his head to see us entering and I was stunned to see how worn he looked; as if all air had been knocked out of him. What in the world had Hermione done to him?

Hermione took her old seat as well, but before Harry and I could find a chair, Malfoy got up and stalked over to the other side of the table to sit beside Hermione. Harry and I had no choice but to sit across from them, which was just as well. I refreshed the tea supply and sat down next to Harry and looked expectantly across the table at the odd couple.

They looked nice together. Hermione's slightly darker skin took away the paleness of Malfoy's skin when she sat next to him. One would have thought that the contrast stood out more, but oddly it did not. They were complete opposites and yet, they seemed to fit so well. I wondered why that was.

Since nobody took the wheel to start the telling, I ventured forward with a question, impatient as I was.

"You told us about the adjunction a while back, but I figure the story doesn't start there, does it?"

I didn't even know why I asked that. I just had a feeling. And Hermione didn't even twitch. She just shook her head languidly. She looked so tired. Malfoy looked over to her and put his hand on her back to rub soothing rounds. It was odd to see such a tender gesture from Draco Malfoy of all people. But it had the required effect.

Hermione straightened up and staring at the table top, she started monotonously: "No, I came upon Draco one night in an empty classroom, early in sixth year. That's where it all started."

Harry next to me inhaled deeply. He had figured something like it, I could tell. But he had berated Hermione the last time they had talked about their adjunction, that she had betrayed him. And she had washed his head for it. He wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

"What happened?" he just asked quietly, when Hermione didn't continue.

When she still didn't say anything, Malfoy took up the thread.

"I had a break down because of the task that you know I was supposed to do: repairing the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirements and killing Dumbledore."

Then they both sank into silence again, both lost in their thoughts.

"And then, Hermione? What did you do?" Harry urged her. He was becoming impatient.

Staring at the table top, Hermione said: "I comforted him. He was so lost. Of course, he wouldn't let me at first. He snarled and barked at me to get out, to leave him alone. The usual insults fell while I tried to figure out what was going on, why he was so upset. And then Snape came by on a control. Draco saved my neck by hiding me and only showing himself. It was after midnight by that time and Snape would have taken the opportunity to make an example out of me, for sure."

Malfoy snorted. When she looked over at him, sceptical if he doubted her assumption, he said: "No, no, you're right. He would have. Even though he would have hated himself for it."

Hermione smiled a bitter smile. She seemed to know what he meant.

"After Snape left and Draco made me leave for good, he really broke down. I couldn't leave him alone. He ended up with his head on my lap and I comforted him. When he had calmed down, we went back to our dormitories and never spoke of it again until we started working our compow way later."

Malfoy snorted again. "You forgot to mention that you offered to take my pain if you could, hypothetically, because I was out of my mind in desperation."

I chuckled. That was so typical Hermione. And for somebody as ungrateful and as disgusting as Draco Malfoy, the way we knew him at that time, Hermione had really outdone herself. I said as much.

"Gosh, Hermione. For Malfoy? Had you gone mad?"

Malfoy grinned cheekily at my reaction. "I'd say she had."

Hermione scowled. "I wasn't mad. He needed help and I gave it to him. It's not that I could actually take all his hurts and problems from him. But I think it helped him that I offered, that I showed sympathy."

Malfoy rolled his eyes and snorted. "The understatement of the century. No, the millennium."

"I'm not even going to go into why it would have been wrong to offer Malfoy the black under your fingernails, so, just tell me, how did that go on?" Harry interrupted the banter.

"Well," Hermione carried on hesitantly. "We met from time to time in the hallways and nothing in particular happened until you put the _Sectum Sempra_ on him."

"You know, Granger, let me tell it, if you can't tell it right."

Her head flew to him. "What wasn't right?"

"When was the next time I came upon you in the hallways?" he stared her down with blazing eyes.

"What significance does that have?" she crossed heads with him. Ah, they were like an old couple, always bickering, always wanting to be right.

"Let them be the judge, but tell it right," he remediated her.

"Fine," she snarled. "The next time we crossed paths was, when I sat in my niche on the seventh floor contemplating life, just after I had set the birds on Ron."

Harry chuckled. "Served him right. Stupid Lavender."

Both their faces darkened at once. After all, they had her to thank for the fact that they hadn't been able to come to terms with the power of their compow. They had to disclose it prematurely to the public to counteract her slander. And now the public would eat them alive in its curiosity. And that would complicate their relationship.

I grinned broadly and Harry chuckled again. We both had seen something they didn't know yet, right before we came. Ron had read the article. And he had not been pleased. Let's just say that Ron and Lavender were not as dearly beloved anymore as they used to be.

Hermione fixed us with a stare that would have made a basilisk cower. "What is going on?" she said meanly.

Harry glanced at his fingernails. "Oh, nothing. We just overheard Ron and Lavender "talking" when I picked Ginny up."

I giggled. "Talking". That's a good one."

"Are you telling us, that your brother, the infamous weasel, may or may not have set his "fiancée" straight for her stupidity?" Draco barked at me.

"Oi, Malfoy. Manners towards my girlfriend," Harry barked back. Ah, Harry, I love you, I really do.

I grinned. "Let's just say that you can expect a public and a personal apology from Lavender Brown. Or an obituary for her. And the engagement is on hold."

Hermione raised her eyebrows appreciatively. "Did he really?"

"Yep. Folded her in half, lengthwise."

Hermione smiled proudly. "Good for him. Good old Ron."

That didn't seem to please Draco Malfoy for some reason. He fidgeted in his chair. "Be that as it may, can we carry on here, because I'd like to go home at one point?"

Hermione looked at him sideways. "Your home or my home?"

Draco was taken aback. And then he hissed at Hermione as if she had done him something wrong: "I was thinking your home, but if you don't want me there, I do have a home, just say the word."

"Ah," Hermione said, turning back to us. Okay, that was odd. He seemed to have stayed exclusively with Hermione, and now they were on the rocks. Why would she not want him to go home with her again? And be so nonchalant about it?

She seemed to have gained some strength from the fact that Ron had stood up for them and put Lavender on a leash, because she continued their story. "Well, Draco did back me up, in a way. I did feel better when he left. And then you came to bring me back, Ginny." Malfoys face was always a curiosity. It never really showed any emotions, except disgust or anger or glee. When I looked at him on that day, I saw the anger alright. He was angry that Hermione had put him down. But at the same time his face relaxed visibly at Hermione's words. Did it give him a sort of satisfaction that he had helped her back in sixth year, when she had been sad over lost love? It seemed that way. Merlin, were they ever connected. In a very convoluted way.

"We met several more times in the hallways. Once you know, right after Ron had decided he needed a good snog. Once after Slughorn's Xmas party. Yes, Harry, after you overheard him."

"You knew? You knew about his talk with Snape?" Harry panted.

"Yes, I knew, but it wouldn't have changed my view if I hadn't. I still stand to what I told you at that time. And I was right, wasn't I? Dumbledore knew and he protected Draco. And more obvious, Snape wanted to find out what Draco was up to, so he could protect him as well."

"I never figured that he actually wanted to help me," Malfoy mumbled. "I thought, stupid and young as I was, that he wanted to meddle as my father always meddled. That wouldn't have been the worst, but I needed to do it alone. Voldemort was very specific and I wanted to save my parents." He looked over to Hermione and with a grin, he said: "You warned me that Potter was watching me."

I didn't know which one was louder, Harry's spluttering or Hermione's shocked gasp to be so outed.

"You warned him?" Harry spat at her. I put a calming hand on his arm. I didn't want him to jump her.

"Harry, he was going on and on about Snape and totally disregarded that somebody else might be on the lookout. I didn't want him dead, is that a crime now?"

"And I certainly didn't need her warning, Potter, so you may as well lie off of her. Did you ever find me before it was too late? Even Hermione didn't figure it out, and I was pretty confident, if she didn't, than nobody else would. I had some respect for Granger's brain. Still do, in fact," Malfoy snarled Harry down.

Harry snarled back. Just one cry of frustration. It was just a memory, the deal done, the monster dead, but realizing that it hadn't been black and white, that even amongst his friends, loyalties were a mixed thing, was hard for Harry. That had been the hardest part, he had told me later.

"Give me that firewhiskey now," he snarled at Malfoy. Malfoy obliged and _Accio_'d a second glass from the cupboard and filled it with a double. Harry nixed it in one down and clonked his glass on the table.

"Refill," he said imperiously.

"Erm, Potter, you may want to go easy on this," Malfoy carefully intervened.

"That's my firewhiskey there and I want another glass. Fill up."

When Malfoy had done so reluctantly, Harry said: "Bottoms up" and downed the second glass as well. He shook his head after that and looked a bit bleary eyed but clonked his glass down again, nonetheless.

"Weasel.., Ginny, are you going to do something about it? He can't have another one," Draco said uncertainly. "If he's not used to it, he's going to be sick for days."

I shrugged. "It's his head." I knew it was a lost battle to try to convince Harry if he had set his mind.

He rolled his eyes and Hermione snorted. Turning to her, he hissed: "I demand that you keep me under control, should I ever come into a situation like this."

Hermione chuckled and turned to him: "You have high hopes."

Malfoy drank in the fact that Hermione fully turned to him. Their eyes connected and I was sure if we hadn't been in the room, he would have eaten her up. The inaudible crackle in the air was enough to tell me that Draco Malfoy was hopelessly in love with Hermione Granger. We hadn't gotten to that part yet, and I didn't know if we would ever get to hear it, but one thing was certain: devotion was just a word that didn't come close to what Draco Malfoy felt for my friend. What had she done to him to make him so whipped? And why was Hermione not returning it? I mean, I had my Harry and I would never trade him for the world, I loved him, still do in fact, but to have Draco Malfoy and not just have him but to control him, would have been, phh. I don't know what to say. Objectively, he was a pureblood with a load of gold under his feet, handsome, smart, by reputation stellar in the bedroom, Mr Darcy comes to mind (except for the stellar part. Yeah, I dabbled in muggle literature. Hermione put me on it) - how could she not take that? Even with his past, he had come far and they were magically connected. She would have to know what he was feeling and if he was up to further evil, which he never really was. He wasn't evil. He had been a bully, blurting and living by his parents' convictions, which had likely been enforced in his home, but he had grown up a bit. So, what was going on in her tremendous head? I had seen her at her lowest over her separation from Malfoy, she was clearly in love with him, so, what was the problem?

I resigned myself to more observation. Topping up Harry's glass once more, Malfoy leaned back, gave himself another one and stoppered the bottle decidedly.

"That's it, Potter. No more. You better savour that …"

Before he could say "one", Harry had downed the third firewhiskey in a row. Shivering, he said: "Alright, that one did the trick. It's fine, Malfoy, put it away."

"Potter, that's no schnapps." Malfoy cradled the bottle in his arms, away from where Harry sat. The only thing missing was him stroking it dearly. Even Hermione had to laugh at his antics.

"You may laugh, but Potter downing this precious … it's just unheard off." He looked seriously put out, cradling the bottle as if he was protecting it. Hermione and I laughed fully. Malfoy looked a little uncertain until Hermione let her head sink on his shoulder in laughter. He quickly put the bottle down and embraced Hermione instead. Whipped. Definitely.

When I had calmed down, I wanted to hear more of the story. Although I, of course, had listened to the wireless while waiting for Harry to come get me, so I knew of their fabulous ability, I was curious to hear the full story how they got there.

"So, when else did you meet?"

Hermione calmed herself immediately. Relaxing against his shoulder, his arm around her waist, she seemed to enjoy the intimacy.

"Well, you know the part where I visited him in the hospital and we adjuncted. We told you all about that, and we didn't leave anything out on that part. We met only once afterward in sixth year and that was the night before Dumbledore died. He warned me."

Well, that was news to me. Hermione had warned him of snooping Harry and he had warned her of Death Eaters coming into the castle? Why hadn't she said anything?

"He didn't tell me exactly what was going to happen, he only warned me to keep my head down. And he kissed me."

I heard Harry choke as much as I did. Back then, already?

"Dumbledore told us, a touch would have been sufficient, but we "needed" to seal the adjunction. I was rather fatalistic that night. I didn't know if I would ever see her again. I didn't lust after her, after all she was the world's most famous mudblood, but I thought this was my only chance to ever kiss her. And so I did," Draco told that part, dejectedly. "Hermione impressed me with her fierceness to fight. As I said, I was rather resigned to my fate, which was likely death. But she didn't give up. And she wouldn't heed the warning either. I became rather angry that she wouldn't save herself."

Hermione patted his knee consolingly. He stopped her hand with his hand over hers. They looked so set. They were a couple, there was no doubt. They knew each other, intimately and more. I was just a spectator from the outside. They belonged.

But I wasn't prepared for his next sentences. "And then I heard her, when I tried to kill Dumbledore on the Astronomy tower. I heard her voice in my mind, pleading with me, begging me not to do it, that she, that you all could and would help me, that I was no killer."

Okay, there was a puzzle piece. First the comfort, and then Hermione had believed in him when nobody else had. That's a strong motivator, all the more, because she was an unexpected believer.

"And then, fortunately, Snape came and did the deed, so I didn't have to do it. Yes, don't even bother, Potter, we all know that he did it to save me and that Dumbledore wanted him to." He looked over to the wall, away from us all. He was still ashamed that he couldn't have done it, although he knew it was for the better. Men.

Harry saved the day, once again. "Malfoy, you want to be a murderer?"

Malfoy looked at Harry, who was slightly drunk, but surprisingly focused, with a snappish expression. "Want? No."

"Then what's your problem?"

Malfoy set to answer but closed his mouth before he could say anything. Fixing his gaze on Harry, he tried to formulate a biting answer but didn't get there. "What indeed?" he murmured eventually.

He was alright, Malfoy. Smart and with enough insight to make a potentially decent man. If he really cared about Hermione, and there was no doubt that he did, he would make a decent friend. If you could overlook the fact that he would always call out your weakness. We had to put up with Ron's bluntness all the time, I'd say we could deal with Malfoys' snarkiness in the long run. I saw what Hermione might see in him.

"I'll spare you the details of what happened in Malfoy Manor before you arrived there." Malfoy had finally found his voice again. Hermione's hand moved to the inside of his thigh. Since Malfoy had his legs crossed, her hand vanished between his legs.

Alright, they were intimate enough so she was able to go close to very private places in public. There was another puzzle piece. I was pretty sure that they had shagged their brains out in those three days after Hermione's discharge from St. Mungo's, until they came to the dinner here, at Harry's house. It must have been phenomenal. I didn't know why, but Hermione and Malfoy likely fit like a sword and its sheath and that was why they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Even though Hermione was anything but experienced, she and Malfoy must have gotten on like ice on fire. But that would have been the wrong angle of approach for Hermione. I had done my best, to support her femininity while at Hogwarts, but she had resisted. Connecting on the physical level may have been natural to Malfoy, according to his reputation, but to Hermione that would have been all wrong, even though she might have enjoyed it. She identified with her brain. She didn't see the effect she had on boys. She didn't see that some men thought that a smart woman was sexy. Although Malfoy was definitely enthralled.

I could imagine. As a pureblood, he would have been expected to marry another pureblooded Slytherin girl. These girls were raised to make the most out of their standing, ambitious, inducted to please and capture men, it was a bit scary. If he was used to this, and didn't feel right with it, Hermione would be the perfect antidote. Her passion to fight for hopeless causes was a good indication for the way she generously threw out her energy.

Until it was zapped from her, like right now. That had never happened before. Hermione always had an abundance of energy to spread to numerous causes. Never had I seen her so withdrawn. Powerless. She felt powerless. Why was that?

"When you were brought into the Manor by the Snatchers, I was mortified, of course, but I was also relieved to see Hermione," Malfoy picked up the thread. "Supposedly, that is a part of the adjunction, to be relieved when the two carriers are united. But we still don't know why that is, other than our compatibility and weird energy talk."

"Draco, you cared about me. Cared enough to pull immeasurable pain from me into yourself to endure. We had been on the run, Harry, Ron and I, missing for months. Don't you think you were simply happy to see me again? My joy was a little overshadowed by the precariousness of the situation, but I at least was grateful to see you alive and kicking, even though you looked a little shocked and battered on that day. We didn't know what we had with our adjunction yet, and with the compow's power only slowly unfolding, we couldn't expect to feel the whole load of joy," Hermione said categorically.

I nodded. I had heard that on the radio as well. That was going to go down in history, a Malfoy pulling and suffering pain for a muggleborn. And slowly something dawned in me, when another puzzle piece clicked into place. They were inextricably bound to each other. They were two halves to a whole. They couldn't breathe without the other half knowing. They weren't only magically connected, they were connected. The only question was, why did that bother Hermione so much?

Malfoy was saved from replying to Hermione's statement, when Harry piped up.

"I only thanked you mentally, I didn't have the time to say it out loud that day, but thanks, Malfoy," he said.

"What for, Potter? I hardly did anything for you."

"You didn't identify us. That gave us time. The right timing has a lot to do with luck but is absolutely essential in insurmountable tasks. And we gained another lead from our visit in the Manor, with Bellatrix's fury about the sword."

Malfoy snorted. "Perhaps. I couldn't save Hermione entirely though, like you would have done."

Hermione patted his leg again. "You've done enough. Anything more would have endangered you."

"Then maybe, I should have put myself in danger," he spat disgusted. "What I did was not enough."

Hermione glanced at him helplessly. She couldn't make him believe, that he couldn't have saved her, and it had been for the better. It all worked out the way it was supposed to be. But Draco Malfoy didn't believe it. So stubborn, the two of them. He blamed himself for the fact that the woman, he now had come to love, had been tortured in his house. The way he returned her glance, made my throat go dry and me wiggle uncomfortably on my chair. I felt very superfluous. I felt that Harry and I shouldn't be there, and if we hadn't, they would have fallen into each other's arms and make little Malfoys, it was that cheesy. As it was, the way their heads moved, they could barely restrain themselves from kissing the living daylight out of each other. Merlin, was it ever sappy.

And then, as it is with Harry and Luna, they say something when you least expect it and it rattles your very existence.

"You did something else that day, Malfoy. You let me disarm you."

Malfoy turned his head to Harry, but only reluctantly. He had difficulties to tear himself away from Hermione.

"How is that significant?" he said hoarsely.

"Do you remember what I said to Voldemort before his own killing curse flipped back to kill him? About the Elder Wand?" He waited for Malfoy's brief nod but his confused look showed that he hadn't understood it.

"You were the master of the Elder wand before me."

"How is that possible, Potter? I've never even seen the Deathstick."

Harry smiled. "Yes, you did. It was Dumbledore's wand, and when you disarmed him on the Astronomy tower, it went to answer to you. It was another of Riddle's mistakes to think that you need to kill to capture a wand or this wand in particular. He was rather focused on killing in an unhealthy way, I'd say. When I disarmed you in the Manor, not only did the Elder Wand switch alliance to me, but also your own wand. That's why I couldn't give it back to you. It wasn't yours anymore. The wand choses its wizard, remember?"

Malfoy's eyes showed the realization more than anything. They lit up. You couldn't have told from the way he grumbled "You're welcome" that he was pleased that he had contributed to bring Voldemort down, but he was. His eyes clearly showed it. Gosh, Hermione, just to be able to look into these grey eyes every morning waking up, wasn't it rubbish whatever you were debating in your head? And yes, Harry's green eyes worked for me.

Harry said one more and it was that that blew our minds. "I believe the same goes for you two, doesn't it?"

Malfoy only nodded resigned, but by Hermione's twitch I saw that Harry had hit the nail full on the head.

"What do you mean, Harry?" she said sharply.

Harry smiled his little Harry-smile that I loved so much. Harry wasn't powerful because he had such an abundance of magic, like Malfoy and Hermione, especially together. Harry was powerful because he knew how to use his magic well and he knew when not to use it. That kind of knowledge made him wise prematurely. And it was that little wise, knowing smile that I loved so much and that made me admire him to the end of time and back.

"I mean, Hermione, that the magic chose you, didn't it? Chose you two for the adjunction? Handpicked you out of thousands of wizards and witches to give you a tool to better the world, something that is very dear to your heart? Raised you above the normal witch on the street by giving you this power with Malfoy, a pureblood and a muggleborn together, to show the world what magic is about? That is has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with who you are and where you come from, but with what you do with it? And that goes for both of you. You will never be able to deny your heritage, and I know you don't want to," he stopped her objection before she could say the words. She snapped her mouth shut again.

"But you can show every witch and wizard what magic really is about, the balance of things and the responsible use of the power given to you. And when I look at the man next to you, he has understood that already. But you seem to be a little behind and I wonder, for a woman with your brain size, why that is."

Yes, Harry, so do I.

"That's what I've been trying to tell her for the last few days but she thinks in her stubborn head that she had to fall in love with me for the magic to unfold its full power and that she had no choice and no saying in the matter," the handsome blond man on Hermione's side mumbled dejectedly. "Mind you, we had to figure all of that out first. It hadn't been written on the wall one morning."

Ah, yes, that made sense. That would be a typical Hermione thing to do, to look at the shortcomings of any given situation first.

"Hermione?" Harry addressed his friend who looked shell shocked.

"I was already above the normal witch on the street because I helped you. I could have taken my celebrity to crusade for what's important to me, elf rights and the right treatment of werewolves and so on," she blurted half-minded. I could see the wheels turning in her head, though.

Harry snorted disbelievingly. "And just how much effect would that have had, do you think? About as much as your SPEW in fourth year? Your club for elf rights that had three members because Ron and I were too cowardly to tell you that you were fighting a lost cause?"

"I would like to think that I have more clout now and people will listen more to what I have to say," Hermione bitched. Malfoy and I sat back. Harry and Hermione fighting it out was a sight to be seen, but we didn't want to get in the middle of it.

"Hermione, wake up." Harry yelled at his best friend. "People will never listen to your argumentation for hopeless causes because they are hopeless causes. Why do you want to ridicule yourself by fighting for them?"

"Ridicule? What's so ridiculous about elf rights and the fact that people like Lupin had to suffer for having been bitten by a werewolf?"

"Lupin was an exception, for crying out loud. Most werewolves are more along the lines of Greyback and people are rightfully afraid that they will bite their children. Lupin would have gladly confirmed that it is a likely risk. You are fanatical in your ideas, Hermione. And as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, it did after all help me to defeat Voldemort, you need our help to see the world as it is, Malfoy's in particular. He's very good at seeing things how they are. If he doesn't have to follow his parents' bullshit, that is."

We all ignored Malfoy's indignant look, when Hermione pelted Harry right back.

"Oh, that's right, Harry. If I hadn't found the clue in Dumbledore's book, we would still be out there hiding our asses or be dead because the Snatchers had caught us and there were no Draco and Dobby to save them."

"I know that, Hermione, that's what I'm saying. Put that brain of yours to use, but use it on something useful. Who cares about werewolf rights when people are still afraid that there is an escaped Death Eater around the next corner, killing off your family? It's too fresh, Hermione, so help the world heal, for Merlin's sake. That's what you can do, with your adjunction. Malfoy is willing, so get to it."

Malfoy twitched, hearing his name called but he didn't say anything. Harry and Hermione carrying it out over the kitchen table was too impressive to miss. He bent slowly to me to not distract the two friends blazing at each other. I bent to him to hear his whisper over the table and caught a whiff of his smell. Hm, but he was delicious. Damn, Hermione, take this man and shackle him down.

"Have they always been like this?"

"Yes," I grinned. "Harry is the only one she will listen to. They are best friends but every once in a while they disagree and then they explode. He's the only one who can set her straight."

Malfoy groaned. "I should have come to you two days ago. Would have saved me some nerves." He considered something while looking at the fighting pair, and then said with a sneer: "Well, I will not have him in my bedroom if we have another argument."

"Don't worry," I smirked at him. "Once she's set on a course, she won't bear away. I'm sure, Harry will be happy to give you some pointers how to keep her there, just in case."

"Hm," he grunted. "I'll keep that in mind."

We turned back to the conversation over the table just in time to see Hermione deflate visibly after Harry's last sentence, which made Harry stop in his tracks.

"What is it, Hermione?" he asked tentatively.

Malfoy shook his head. He'd been at that point before, I could tell. But he was fully alert as to how Harry would handle the situation. He hadn't apparently had much success.

"Why do I have to be responsible to make the world heal?" Hermione whispered.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Why me? Why do I always have to be the responsible one? Who helps me heal?" She spoke only a little louder.

Harry looked at his friend with incredulity and I shook my head. Stubbornness had its place, for sure, but Hermione was its mistress.

"He does?" Harry offered with a wave to Malfoy. Malfoy connected his gaze with Potter and held his hands wide, as if to say, Of course, I will, but help me out, mate, I don't know what else to say anymore. "We do?" He waved between me and him back and forth. I nodded. Of course I would help her. Always. Whatever she needed.

She sagged into her chair and on the table top, the very picture of a woman who finally buckled under the crushing weight of grief. The tension, the hardship, the constant fear for your life or the lives of your loved ones, all those losses of friends. Heck, she hadn't even had a chance to bring her parents back yet. Don't get me wrong, we all had our breakdowns in quiet corners at one point after the final battle. I wailed for two days, mourning my brother, and Tonks and Lupin and other friends. Harry held me for those days and then he snarled at me to stop it. And two days later, I held him for a full afternoon, evening and half the night while he cried his heart out.

Hermione apparently hadn't had her chance yet. Perhaps Ron hadn't had the right shoulder to cry on. Perhaps, her healing had been bound to her blooming relationship with Ron and when that had failed, apparently she had just turned to more activity, busying herself with the clean-up and rebuilding, drawing on her abundance of resources. And where Harry was healing through menial work and working for the regrowth, it had apparently impressed upon Hermione the fact that she always had to work for others. I shook my head. Hermione, girl, really.

All of which became very clear to me, when she whimpered again into her arms "Why me?" with a sob mixed in.

Malfoy was shocked. His face showed pure panic. He wanted to touch her, to take her in his arms, but he didn't know if he should, and he looked seeking help to me. I shook my head, and he lowered his hands again and crossed them over his chest to secure them there, although he bit his lip in frustration. It was better if she kept her attention on Harry at the moment. Hugging her would have only let her escape the naked truth she needed.

Draco Malfoy had never seen Hermione so low. Even when she had been tortured in the Manor and he had taken part of her pain to save her sanity, she had fought and come up with a brilliant ruse under immense pressure, I was told. To him, it was cause for concern, to see that Hermione had a breaking point. I didn't think he thought any less of her but he was worried because he didn't know what to do.

I had seen her low before, but it had always been short lived, and Hermione had allowed herself only short outbursts of frustration, before she picked herself up again and went back to work. But it seemed, this time, the whole responsibility of yielding so much power was more than she could stomach. After all, she was a muggleborn. She'd never experienced the growing up with magic before she arrived at Hogwarts. And although she had educated her mind in every conceivable way, the feeling of magic we grow into when growing up, the little explanations from your parents when something concerns you, she had missed. So had Harry, but it had given him the wisdom that you didn't need magic for everything. Hermione, being as powerful as she was, had come to the conclusion that she had to be able to do everything by magic. To see the difference was nothing you could learn from books.

"Why you, Hermione? Because you can," Harry looped up her thoughts. He had understood it as well. "Not because you have to, but because you can. You are one of very, very few who can."

Harry gave her a second to process his words. After another sob, she quieted and Harry gave her more food for thought.

"Do it at your own leisure. Nobody is forcing you to do anything, except you. Give yourself a break, for crying out loud. You've been gifted with this opportunity to become absolutely essential to the wizarding world. Once you've helped with the healing, people will listen to everything you tell them. They will let you write the new laws you want and accept them with little opposition. But you don't need to start right away. Go and live and heal. And perhaps with the healing, you'll be less fanatical about your ideas and a little more realistic."

Hermione's head came slowly up. She sniffed and wiped the tears from her cheeks, but her clear eyes showed that Harry's words had sunk in. She laughed a little desperate laugh, and when we looked at her quizzically, she explained: "I had a discussion with a house elf the other day. She absolutely wanted no clothes and she was very adamant. She represented all Malfoy house elves and wanted to tell me that under no circumstances was I to prevent them from working for the Malfoys by giving them clothes." She chuckled.

Malfoy smiled. "Deezy, hm?"

Hermione nodded. "Deezy."

He chuckled. "Ah, Deezy is a good one. I love her to death. Do you know that she nursed me?"

"Yes," Hermione said, not looking his way. "She told me." After another sniff, she asked, not looking at anybody, especially not the wizard next to her: "What about Malfoy?"

Said man inhaled sharply and the smile melted of his face like butter in the oven.

"What about him?" Harry asked cautiously, aware of the hurtful way Hermione wasn't looking at her adjunction partner.

"He says he loves me," Hermione admitted with her gaze lowered to the table. Harry sent an uncertain glance at Malfoy whose fury developed visibly. I understood him. He was a proud man who had been raised to believe that showing emotions was a weakness. To admit his love would have been hard for him. To have it pulled out in the open and dissected to his former arch foe was a bit much and blatantly disrespectful by Hermione. I tried to reach a hand across the table to calm him, but he jerked back. I couldn't blame him for that.

"And do you love him?" Harry brought the point back.

Hermione still wouldn't look up. "Yes." Harry exhaled. Too soon.

"But,…" she continued. I groaned. No, Hermione, no but, please, no but, I pleaded in my mind in vain. He's going to explode if you explain your but.

And then it gushed and bubbled from her effervescent mouth: "But there is this whole issue with the magic and Snape said that the brain is not made to differentiate and it could be just the magic making us feel affection and it's all so wrong, because all we do is shagging, and it's just not me, and even though it feels so right, I don't know if I can do that always, what if he loses his interest in me, after all I have no real experience, and he has so much, boy, all these women he has been with, and the compow develops with the relationship of the carriers and Dumbledore said you have to believe that the magic doesn't determine you, but how can I believe that when it's so powerful, it could be pushing us deeper into the feeling, and I want to feel, I love this feeling, but how can it be real when Draco and I are so different, and Andromeda said we match and our energies aligned because we match, and the magic actually took his Dark Mark, can you believe that, probably to make us more even, which makes it even spookier, and did you know that DM, his initials, are also the same for the Dark Mark, funny, isn't it, and I want to fall in love, really, but not because I have to, and I know I got to know him better, because we've been working our compow so long now, he's a decent man if he wants to be, but we are so different, and I know he doesn't call me the m word anymore but he used to loathe me so much and how can that change so completely, and yes, he is attractive but then, what does he want with me, I ask you, and yes, I was the one who jumped him first after we captured Gibbons, and god, it was so good, but how can we keep having that, it can't be real, there is something wrong, it can't be natural, and so at first, I rejected him because I couldn't believe it, and he thought I was his perfect match, and then he got engaged but I knew he couldn't marry Astoria, she's all wrong for him, they are all wrong for him," here she emitted a low growl, "but then he was engaged and the compow dissolved his bond when we really opened up, I really, really wanted him, and it's so good with him, oh, I can't believe how good it is, but the magic uses touch to assess us, and it seems so wrong, he's a pureblood and I am just a lowly muggleborn, but I want to comfort him every time he's so low, and we can't really separate, because we are both paralysed like a zombie when we do, and then we always end up shagging, and again, it's a means for the magic to bring the compow further because every time we unite we get deeper, and it feels so right and on the other hand, it feels so wrong because the magic uses it, but every time he's with me I fall deeper for him, and I don't want to fall for him because the magic makes me."

She took one deep breath. But before any of us could close our jaws to put a word in, she continued her ranting gush: "We do connect on the physical level, that is to say, shagging is incredible. I think I mentioned that." At this point she rolled her eyes luxuriously.

I nodded dumbfounded. Blimey, Hermione, good for you. I can't complain either, Harry's not too bad.

"But I think, since this all started out on the animalistic level, where energy is usually perceived, our brains have just been trying to make sense out of that, because objectively, it doesn't make sense that Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger are together, doesn't it? And so I debated with myself forever, how to make sense out of it, because I can't be without him but I also don't want to be with him, if it's only for the magic and so, I'm at an impasse."

After a minute of shock because of the compactness of her confusion, Malfoy was the first to speak up.

"I'm going to kill the bugger Snape for saying that," he growled, turning restlessly in his chair, as if to get up and storm out. "Ever since she heard that, she's all sceptical again."

"Sit down, Malfoy. He's already dead," Harry barked at the upset blond.

Malfoy sent him a death glare but stilled in his chair again. "I know that, Potter. I was joking. But I will have to destroy something very soon, because I'm so close to snapping."

"There's a dummy out in the backyard if you need to vent your frustration," Harry said with a jerk of his head. Malfoy stared at him open-mouthed, then snickered, and sat back again.

I hadn't said anything yet. I was sitting there, staring at Hermione open-mouthed as every normal person would have done. Had she bottled all of that up in her? No wonder, she was confused. Why hadn't she come to talk to me? Oh, okay, it was very fresh, just five days, and she hadn't had a chance yet.

"Blimey, Hermione. Is that all?"

Harry looked at me sideways and I shut my mouth. Harry had a plan and I had to shut up. Go, Harry, the stage is for you. Chop, chop.

"Do you really believe that, Hermione?" he asked her gently.

"Do I believe what?" she replied exhausted. She had just decked out the content of her entire mind, I felt. Well, what kept her busy on that day.

"Do you believe that there is a chance that your feelings are not real and the magic makes you feel what you feel?"

"Snape said, …" she started.

Harry barked so harshly that Hermione twitched. "I don't care what Snape said. He was a smart and brave man but not the best judge of emotions, I'd say. Especially with regards to women. Do you believe what you just told me?" She looked up at Harry wide-eyed, helpless in her confusion.

"Well?" he barked at her again.

She lowered her head. "I don't know."

"That's it," Malfoy shouted, making all of us jump. He slapped the table top and got up in the same movement. "I'm done. Granger, I said I love you, and I mean it. But I can't deal with this anymore. I give up. Until you can figure out what you want, I'm outta here. Potter, Ginny, thanks for your help. I'll just take the firewhiskey and go then, shall I?"

Harry looked briefly to me and I nodded. My turn. I got up.

"Malfoy, sit down. Hermione, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Hermione got up slowly and turned to Malfoy with a shocked face. He looked back furious. "Ehm, now?" she asked, not looking at me.

"Yes, Hermione. Now. Get a move on," I barked at her.

When we both stood clear of the table, I grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the kitchen, closing the door behind us with a slam. As soon as I had turned back to her, I started berating her:

"You will get your act together this very instant and face up to your emotions because that man in there loves you."

Hermione inhaled: "But, Ginny, …"

"No" I stopped her. "I don't care if he's Draco Effing Malfoy or his father or Severus Snape resurrected, this young man in there, handsome, too, obviously loves you. He is devoted to you. And I don't know what your problem is, well, I do, but let's not get too deep into it, you will turn off your fucking overactive brain with all your might and just listen for once what your heart tells you and bloody well believe in that."

When she opened her mouth again to say something, I help up my hand.

"I don't want to hear any arguments, any discussion, any words, because that would mean you have thought. I want you to stop thinking and start living for once in your fucking life, Hermione Granger. Which is basically what you just told us, you want. Go and live it. With Malfoy. Stop torturing the man. You've obviously seen something in him and that's why you came together, so why are you being so cruel to him now? Taking a page out of his book, aren't you? Is this revenge for you?"

"Oh, God, Ginny, no," she said with a face as if I'd said NEWTs were cancelled due to lack of attendance. Deeply shocked. I knew she wasn't out for revenge. I just said that to shake her up.

I stabbed her sternum with my index finger. "I was the one who dragged you out of your work when Draco got engaged because you were crushed under the loss. You will not do that again. I saw you since he's back in your life, how you lit up. You need him. You want him. You feel for him. You care about him. You love him. I can see it in your face. And so could you, if you actually looked at yourself, honestly." I put my hands on my hips. This gesture worked for my mother, Hermione and me equally well, and so it did on that day.

"For once, give me a break, and just do what is right for you. I so bloody don't care how much and what kind of magic is there between you and Draco Malfoy, but I care for you. And because I care, I'm telling you in no uncertain terms that if you don't go in there right this minute and kiss this man and go home with him and make love to him all night long and believe that his pleasures are meant for you, I will let my Bat Bogey Hex smother you to death. Honestly. You better believe that."

Wide-eyed, Hermione stared at me. I know she'd seen me fierce before, but rarely turned against her. Perhaps once or twice when she'd had it out for Harry and I was fed up with it. And I know that my flaming red hair made my fierceness all the more impressing. I was banking on that. She wasn't Hermione Granger for nothing. Hermione had faced down Death Eaters, and ridden on a dragon although she was afraid of flying, and got herself in situations that made survival almost impossible, and dealt with and figured out magic that some more mature wizards never heard of in all their life. It should take more than the berating of a woman smaller than her for her to cave. But I was banking on the fact that she actually wanted to and faced with my wrath, she cowered. Good.

"Ginny, .."

"No. Why are you still here?"

"Ginny, I …"

"Hermione, I mean it." I raised my wand to shoulder level and started the incantation.

"Okay, okay, I'll go," Hermione hurried to say. Of course, she could have stopped my hex any time, being who she is, but there would have been a struggle in any case.

Coming back into the kitchen, we looked into two entirely baffled male faces, whose owners were still sitting at the table. Of course, since she and I had been standing right in front of the kitchen door, they had heard every word I had yelled at her. Which of course was fully intentional. Harry had meant for me to do that but he was always surprised at how effective it was. And Draco Malfoy was just stumped, period.

Harry got up and came toward her: "Hermione, …" he started.

"No, Harry, it's okay," Hermione interrupted him. She walked around him to come to stand in front of the blond young man who had come here with her hours ago. She stretched her hand toward him. "Draco?"

Eying her cautiously, he grabbed her hand and got up. She answered the question in his face. "We're leaving."

She turned and pulled Draco with her to the exit of the kitchen. "Good night, Harry. Thanks for setting up the interview."

"My pleasure, Hermione. Anything for you, you know that."

She gave him a one-armed hug, since her one hand still held tight to Draco Malfoy's hand. "Yes, I know. Thanks anyway."

Passing me, who I leaned against the doorway, I gave her a small smile with my jaw set. She nodded at me. I nodded back. "Don't come back before the day after tomorrow. And I want to hear details," I said to her back.

Draco nodded to me as well. "Ginny," he said, and with a half turn back, "Potter".

"Night, Malfoy," was the last thing we said before the kitchen door closed behind them, and we left them to find their way out of 12 Grimmauld Place in the darkness. Or well, the light of their _Lumos_ spells.

I stepped back to Harry, who stood in the middle of the room. He embraced me and kissed my forehead.

"Well done, love. You think she got the message?"

I leaned against the love of my life. "You, too, Harry. Only time will tell. I think this wasn't the last time but it was a crucial one. She can hold onto this whenever she becomes overwhelmed again. And Malfoy will make sure she will remember."

"Did you ever think you would see Draco Malfoy in love? And then in love with Hermione?" Harry shook his head in incredulity.

I shrugged. "Why would he not be in love? He's a man. If the right woman came along, which apparently, she did …"

Harry tilted his head sceptically. "Yeah, but he's Malfoy. We thought he didn't even have feelings."

I snorted. "You have to stop saying that, Harry. 'Being Malfoy' is not a reason. He can change, which very apparently, he did. And for a long time already. With all his faults, he didn't give you up to Voldemort, did he?"

Harry nodded. "No, he didn't. And I suspect he felt rather torn on the day of the final battle. He's too smart to fall into such hogwash as Voldemort was spouting. Which makes him just right for Hermione. She needs someone who can keep her head busy but steer it away from her fanatical ideas. I can't always be around."

I snickered. "Yeah, Malfoy said something in that direction."

"What did he say?"

"That he doesn't want you around in his bedroom."

"Ewww, I certainly hope not."

.

_A/N: Well? What do you say? I like it, I really do. I just want to say that I wrote both gushes, Hermione's and Ginny's, in one sitting, top to bottom, without putting down the laptop. Only minor corrections or additions were done after that. I'm mighty pleased with it._

_Alright, only Hermione's and Draco's conclusion left. How will Hermione realise that her emotions are genuine? How will they figure out the working of the compow? Well, the only so far proven way. Next chapter_

_And then, the Epilogue after that, well, a bunch of epilogues. Prepare yourselves, people._

_Prepare yourselves as well for a possible longer wait. The next chapter is not finished and because it's the final solution chapter, I want to get it right. I might not have it ready for next weekend. And although I always enjoy a review, even if it says "Pleeease update", you may have to be patient next week, Anon ;-))) I hope I won't regret that I updated this already before the next one is complete. Well, we'll see._

_Cheers, summer is here_

_M_


	41. Painkiller

_A/N: Thanks for reviews to kc5534, Anon (yeah, the rain is a bit weird, here as well), () (that's what I'm talking about, when I say give me some song recommendations, thank you, I'll take "Annie" for the next chapter, it's perfect), nikki98, thank you, honey, 200__th__ review, yay, (nikki, nikki, violence? Slapping Hermione? No, no, no ;-)) No, I thought it was better to just tell her to get her arse in gear. She got the figurative slap.), Slytherin's Little Princess (yeah, I know, usually, it's Hermione deeply in love who needs to convince Draco. But you'll see why Draco is a little ahead in this story, believing in their connection. Selfish as he is, he sees his benefit before Hermione sees hers. And since he's already past most of his prejudices, I didn't see the reason for him to put up more of a fight. So, he's just fighting Hermione's obstinacy. ;-)))_

_So, this is the first of the final resolution chapters. It underwent so many transformations that I had four different titles for it. I started with "Freedom", went to "Free Hearts", then to "Pain", and my final version for this part is "Painkiller". And I had to split it (as per usual) because it became too bloody long. Accordingly, the soundtrack changed considerately as well; it went from kinky dance music ("Turn me on", David Guetta feat. Nicky Minaj) to Ed Sheeran's "A team" to "Skinny love". It started out entirely without blood and with this final version I am finally satisfied. Boy, I wished I would get paid for the effort. And sorry, Anon, it just wasn't good to go before today. I put it up as soon as I was done._

_And it's long. Again. Hermione has a lot of ground to cover. I looked it over again and again, and I can't cut anything. Her issues are so complex, they just need the time to come out. I was thinking of cutting it in half again but that would have been unfair to the chapter. You can let me know where you find it got too long. And of course, if you didn't understand. There are at least five of her issues covered in this chapter. She's a complex person, I can't help it. And be forewarned, Hermione just can't stop thinking, right?_

_The poem "Pain" I found on the internet when I checked LEO dictionary for the difference between hurt and pain. My jaw dropped when I read it. I could just find the name of the writer/poet but nothing else. She has some more fantastic poems. Google her if you like it._

"_Where there is pain, there is healing" and "no pain, no gain"; and so the circle closes._

_**Warning: sexual content but also blood. **(no gore and no torture but if your are sensitive to blood I'd suggest you read cautiously) _

_Disclaimer: I doubt that JK Rowling would want anything to do with this, but the unforgettable Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger unfortunately belong to her Harry Potter universe. And not to me. _

_Song for this chapter is "Skinny love" by Birdy/Bon Iver for Hermione. Draco gets his saying in the next chapter. _

**.**

**Chapter 34: Painkiller**

**.**

_PAIN  
>by Amber Kangas<br>This pain fills me  
>this pain of emptiness<br>a pain that doesn't go away  
>a pain of longing for<br>what I don't have  
>having what I don't want<br>a pain of the past  
>and also the future<br>a pain that nobody cares I have  
>a pain that I have every day<br>this pain fills me  
>from the soles of my feet<br>to the top of my head  
>I am filled<br>my soul is dim  
>the pain is a killer<br>it wants to take over  
>I fight<br>with what might I have left  
>I fight this pain<br>I just want this burden  
>to be gone<br>so I may be free  
>I just want this pain<br>that fills me  
>gone<em>

**.**

**Hermione's POV:**

When we came back to my apartment, I looked at Draco. Really looked.

I wanted to see him, I wanted to take him in and digest him. I wanted to look in his grey eyes, grey as ancient rock, to see the man behind them. I wanted to see into him, through him, every little thing that made him tick; his tremendous brain, which worked differently but just as brilliantly as mine. I wanted to see what made his mouth so snarky and his words so biting. I wanted to see his heart, if it was really in the right place, because I wasn't sure if mine was.

Ginny and Harry had shell shocked me. I loved them both to death and trusted them with my life, and if they told me to take a good look at my heart and not to trust my brain in this, I would make a serious effort. Only these two were able to tell me that. Perhaps I would add a third person to the list, eventually.

And so I took a good look at the matter of my heart.

What I saw was a man who used to be my enemy. I still thought he was dangerous but what was the actual danger? I had the nagging feeling of taking a viper into my bed, which would cuddle into the warmth of my body, but bite and kill me when I moved wrong. He was powerful, Draco Malfoy, but not more powerful than I was, it was good to know.

But he was more certain of himself. I believed there was danger in that. He knew what magic could do, he understood its essence, and its and his limits. He had grown up with it, he had been raised to believe to be the elite of the world. And even though his father had likely done a crappy job to install the feeling of true accomplishment in Draco, the Malfoy pride, I believed, did sufficiently as a substitute. He expected magic to serve him and would never believe that it could overwhelm him.

I, on the other hand, was always surprised when I had mastered another piece of magic. I prepared myself, of course, and I studied everything there was, to every spell I ever tried, but I always expected it not to work. Because people expected me to fail, I was a muggleborn after all. And I was always surprised when it did work. When people saw me in class, it was never my first time doing the spell. I had always practised before, to not embarrass me, in case the spell did not work. And in class, I was so happy that the spell did work for me that I might have gotten a little condescending to people who actually did try it for the first time. And so I had accomplished everything I set my mind on. I had mastered aplenty. But with every new piece of magic I encountered I asked myself, if this would be the one I failed over. And Draco Malfoy never did, I was sure of it.

Why was this dangerous? Because I would have to face it at one point, my fear of failure. And I hated failures. If there was anything I hated, it was the feeling of not being able to do something. More than Voldemort. Why did you think I worked so hard? I couldn't stand the feeling of failing and I worked my utmost to avoid it. Because besides my bravery and courage that everybody saw, having accompanied Harry to defeat Voldemort, inside of me was still the little Hermione Granger who came to Hogwarts and was not welcome, who wasn't pretty and who had no friends. And Draco Malfoy was the only one who called me out on that exact feeling.

Being a muggleborn, I felt I was set up to fail in the magical world. As a muggleborn, I was aware that you didn't need magic for everything. And so there was room for not having enough conviction to be able to do particular spells. Whereas people who had grown up with magic never had a doubt that it worked for them. It was a terrible feeling, this doom of failure. And I couldn't really fight against it, because they were right: I knew a world without magic and it worked just as well. They couldn't imagine being without magic. Was that an advantage or a disadvantage?

If Draco knew, he would make fun of me until I faced it. It wasn't the same as Harry and Ron rolling their eyes at the fact that I hardly ever failed. Draco teased just the right way to make it sting and then it made me think. Eventually, I would have to face it. But perhaps I could delay it a little more. I really hated dealing with failure.

I had fought against it since I entered Hogwarts, but fighting against something doesn't make it disappear: it makes you aware that it is constantly there. And it grinds you down after a while. I would have to take a good look at myself at one point and I was afraid that I would only see a struggling muggleborn, who was not adequate to live with magic; that I was afraid of the magic, of the power it had over me, its importance in my life and my dependence on it; and that I wouldn't belong, in the way Draco Malfoy and his consorts had always told me. And then I would have no place to go, because I didn't belong in the muggle world either.

Anyway, it seeped into my bones, this constant failure expectation. And being faced with this immense duty the compow came with and this indescribably powerful magic, I was afraid. After all we'd done, Harry, Ron and I, we couldn't save everybody, we had lost so many friends, and I was afraid that no matter what I did, it was not enough. And I didn't want to fail.

I knew this was all irrational. But fear is never rational. And when you try to tell me that I fought with Harry and should think that I certainly earned my place in the wizarding world by helping to defeat the worst wizard who ever existed, then I'd tell you that you are probably right, but falling in love with a traditional pureblood was still a no-no for a muggleborn, in my book and in everybody's book. And Ron didn't count as a typical pureblood.

Hrmph, focus, Hermione. Focus on your heart. You are thinking again. Ginny said to turn it off, my brain, and to listen to my heart.

Well, my heart. It started to gallop every time this wizard entered the room. I could sense him, smell him, and it tingled in me, when I knew he was near me. The little hairs on my arms stood up when he brushed by me, because I was so aware of him. When I saw him, I saw a young man with silky hair that I loved to touch. I loved sifting through it, letting it glide through my fingers, soft like rain water, and he loved it when I did. I could tell by the way his usually tense and sneering face relaxed when I had my hands in his hair. I saw a man who was extremely well built with broad shoulders, slim hips, smooth muscles and fair skin. I saw the young man whose hands on my skin made me shiver; whose kisses made me thirsty for more and whose body under my hands I would never want to miss; whose handsome features became soft when he saw me.

This all sounded very physical. Was that what my heart told me?

I sighed mentally. If only I knew. And without thinking.

"Feel it", my little voice nagged.

Too tired to reproach it, I just repeated "Feel it" with a scoff in my mind. I was too tired to feel. One would think that spilling all my convoluted thoughts about the issue to Ginny and Harry and Draco and being put on the spot would have solved something, catharsis like.

But the knot hadn't burst. It was still there, in my lower stomach, a big lump, making me nauseous. It felt as if all my energy was clogged up in this one clump in my centre and the heavy weight on my shoulders, the anticipated responsibility of our magic's purpose, was pushing me down.

I sighed for real and then stepped up to him for a soft kiss. There was a feeling I liked. Despite all my trepidations, I did like the physical connection I had with Draco. Like a lock and key, he opened me up a little more every time we did "it". One quarter turn at a time. It felt so bloody good and yet, I didn't want to enjoy it wholeheartedly, I didn't want to get used to it. What if it had to end? Which was more than likely, either because Draco came to his senses or the public pressure would become too much. I had experienced what that was like, public pressure.

And of course, one, and especially I, couldn't simply shag without exchanging pleasantries and starting to connect. As Draco and I had done, and even before we let our clothes drop. As unlikely as we had started out, there were parts in Draco that I really liked, his wit, his sharpness, his quick reactions, his easy use of the magic, his smoothness, his sneaky way of giving compliments. I even liked the way he riled me up at times, the way he made me angry. I thought more clearly when I was angry, my focus sharpened. But I needed to match it against something. And blustering babbling, as Ron was prone to do, didn't do it. I didn't know if Draco knew that he was giving me a much needed challenge when I was angry, a focus, but he seemed to downright enjoy seeing me angry quite often.

And now I had developed "feelings" for him. I almost snorted in my mind. Hermione Granger, the infamous muggleborn, having the hots for the epitome of a pureblood, it was ridiculous. I would either load the entire ire of the wizarding world onto my shoulders (like I needed more weight there) for consorting with the former "enemy", as Ron would put it, or ridicule myself if I fell for him and was then laughed at, when he didn't return it. Either way, I could live without. I was used to being criticised for my heritage, but the laughing stock I would not be. Even though two of my best friends had basically given me their blessings to go and shag this man, I couldn't allow myself to become too attached to it. I had to protect myself, didn't I?

And I knew I was going in circles, because I had gone over all these points before and ticked them off and decided to risk it and to be with Draco.

He said he loved me. It was my understanding that he had never said it to anybody, so I should feel flattered. Could I trust him to be genuine? What if the magic made him and he believed it to be true and at one point gained clarity again? What if he realized at one point, he was sleeping with a mudblood and couldn't make it to the bathroom in time to hurl? Oh, Merlin, what if we took it as far as having children and he came to his senses?

I'm thinking. Excessive thinking will be the death off me, one day. Alright, alright, Ginny, I'll stop.

Draco responded to my kiss but did not initiate anything further. Was he just backing off to let me come to terms? I saw it in his eyes, they pierced me for any sign that I knew what I wanted. Or was he already aware that the end was coming for us? I had seen it in his eyes in Harry's kitchen, that he backed off. That was unheard off with regards to any Malfoy as far as I knew. Was he going to give me the time I needed to come to terms? But I didn't need time, even though I'd said it. I needed inspiration. I needed a reason why it had to be Draco Malfoy and I; a reason other than magical force. The reason why he should be right for me, despite our less than friendly beginning.

My heart. Something dear to my heart. Harry knew that helping was dear to my heart. I was a helper. I loved helping. I'd helped Harry and Ron with their schoolwork as long as I could think. I loved helping helpless creatures. If I was needed, if I could help, I was there. Heck, I'd helped Draco Malfoy of all people before I even knew there was anything positive in him. Of course, I would want to help the wizarding world with its healing. Harry knew that. I just didn't want to be forced into helping. Harry knew that as well. That's why he had reminded me that it was dear to my heart, to tell me that it was something I actually wanted to do. With all my heart.

When we would have created the counter curses to the Unforgivables, I would be able to influence the wizarding world toward something that was dear to me, helping helpless creatures. That thought was worth thinking about. Harry knew me better than I knew myself. But was this worth all the trouble of dating Draco Malfoy? Fights like the one the previous night would be inevitable. There would be more Death Eaters to fight against and Draco facing his old crowd while seeing me would certainly bring up more conflicts. I was certain of that. Did I want that? Could I deal with it?

I felt that wasn't really the right question. Of course, I could deal with it. Did I want to deal with it? Well, if you wanted something badly enough, you were willing to fight for it. Fighting for something was no foreign concept to me. So, that wasn't really the problem. If I wanted Draco, it didn't really matter how many people I would have to convince. I was Hermione Granger. According to my mother, I had come into the world fighting.

But I felt as if I was missing a puzzle piece and it drove me wild to not be able to see the entire picture, because I was missing this one piece. Or maybe more than one.

Did I want Draco? Yes. I …desired him. Certainly. That was a fact. Even though I was a little ashamed to admit it. There had been so many other women who had desired him; I didn't want to be one of them. It was all a matter of how much he desired me back. And for how long he would. Something we couldn't know. Which made it even more dangerous to fall for him. I couldn't allow myself to be so vulnerable.

But I loved him. Didn't I? Yes. Yes?

That was the impasse I felt. In my heart. I couldn't decide. And I couldn't decide because of the magical influence. I knew what I felt. My reaction to him was undeniable; the heart beat in my throat, the sweaty palms, the tingling in my womb. I was drawn to him like a moth to the flame. And that made me afraid, because we all know what happens to the moth. Was that draw natural or magical?

Arrgh, I was thinking again. Ginny, blast, I cannot NOT think.

I sighed again. The burden of indecisiveness felt heavy. Noticing my fatigue, Draco took my hand and we ambled over to my living room and plopped on the couch. There was no hurry. I enjoyed the quietness to just be, after all the aggravation. For a minute. Then I felt driven again.

Feel, I reminded myself, driving forward, always driving myself. I looked over to Draco next to me and found his granite grey eyes focused on me. Ancient. Why did they always remind me of the passing of time and the beginning of the world and enduring rock since ancient times, his grey eyes? Something old, something very old.

"I wondered. What did you talk to Astoria about last night?" he asked, ripping me out of my thoughts. This was something he could do very well, distracting me from my intense thinking. And he had very special means to do it. I smiled despite the fact that his question reminded me of two women, who had also enjoyed his particular skills of distraction; two women who agreed, it was a gift they regretted losing, but who had also conceded, separately, that Draco was better off with me. The gratification reinforced my smile.

I grinned. He was waiting for my answer.

"Your needs," I said and felt reminded of feeling a particular part of him. Oh, the feeling of him inside of me. Did that count as feeling?

He was confused and frowned. "My needs?"

I chuckled. "Yes. We are both aware that you have needs."

Feel. I wanted to feel him. Something in me called out for feeling him. Deep, deep in me. And yes, you can say it both ways.

I swung my leg over his lap and he welcomed, embraced and steadied me. "Big needs. Enormous needs, insatiable needs," I grinned in his face. Thank heavens, I was on the receiving end of his needs.

He understood. He grinned back, leaned against the backrest and said: "I also have a big ego."

Innuendo, wow. Hermione Granger flirting about doing "it" with Draco Malfoy. The world was caving in. I had to laugh at the bizarreness and affirm his big ego. Did he ever, top and bottom. But I was quickly distracted by something else.

His beautifully swung lips called to me. For a man, he had rather sensual lips. Perhaps that had been one of the reasons why he had looked a little weak as a boy, and the reason why he liked to sneer and smirk so much, to blur the soft lines of his mouth. Now, with his masculine stature and face, his constantly clenching jaw, and the piercing hard stare of his eyes, his soft lips were the only indication that there was something soft in him. As if I knew one of his secrets, a very private one. But to me, it was a lure of some sort. Dangerous. As if my intuition told me that it didn't make sense for such a dangerous and snarling man to have so soft lips. And he could kiss me into oblivion with it. It was dangerous, the way he kissed me. As if I was stepping into fire when I let him kiss me too much; a fire that would control and devour me because I forgot where I was. As was essential in nature, I felt well advised to keep a close eye on something so tempting and not to underestimate its dangerous power. But as it also was, I couldn't easily turn my eyes away. Like the moth and the fire. This time, it called to me, the temptation to play with the fire.

I put my hands on his loins, because I wanted to feel the power I had over that particular body part of him. This was established. He did respond to my touch like a flower reacts to sunlight. Predictable. I had that well under control. But I shivered when I thought what happened when he became fully aroused. How we ate each other up hungrily every time I let him, I welcomed him. My hands resting on the place where the fire originated, already felt its stirring.

My mother had always told me: "Don't play with the fire if you can't stand the heat." And so, I had always refrained from igniting anybody, because I wasn't sure if I could contain their fire. Like a good girl. A girl who's afraid of the demons that she herself unleashed, afraid to lose control, uncertain of herself. But this time, something pushed me to tempt the fire. I thought I could control it, instead of the way I had let it devour me so far.

I undressed him slowly, peppering kisses where ever I exposed skin. Draco turned his head and his body this way and that, to give me room to go where I wanted to kiss, and did the same to me. Slow. Languid. Different from the usually impatient coupling, passionate fire that ignited and roared up high, which we used to let consume us whole. This was a slowly building one. Controlled. Not overwhelming. This was all about control. My control. He was letting me go at my own pace.

When I had undressed him, I transformed my sofa into a wide bed with a wave of my wand. Draco reclined on it, pulled me up on him and stroked over my skin up and down, over my back and my sides, my breasts and my bum, massaging my shoulders and sifting through my untameable hair, perfectly content that he had both hands to use.

It was heavenly. Stroking and caressing had so far not been much on the menu. Not only were Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger together such an explosive mix that stroking somehow didn't fit the bill, except with the focus to quickly bring each other up. And I could certainly feel how this caressing brought him up. It pressed into my belly. But Draco simply didn't seem to be the type who would stroke a woman leisurely. Merlin, was I ever wrong. He did marvellous.

And then everything went wrong once again. Draco stretched back when I went to work on his throat and did a savouring "Mmmm … mmmm … Hermione". At least, it would have sounded savouring, if not the most infamous word had started with the same letter and came from his own mouth in his voice on a regular base and something caught my eye, when he raised his arms over his head. I looked up following the distraction and stared directly at his left arm. I looked at scarred and marred skin and a skull grinning back, sideways, poking out a serpentine tongue, as if it was mocking me.

I briefly remembered Ginny's admonition, to turn off my brain and make love to this man all night long, but the horrors that came with the Morsmordre mark suddenly flooded my mind. It felt wrong. Something in me screamed in frustration, scrambling to gather the visions before they could take over my overactive mind. But it couldn't stop them filling my focus, and making goose bumps go up my arms: visions of the night at the Quidditch World Cup, where a family of muggles hung head down in the air, even the children, scaring and scarring them for life; Mr Ollivander and Luna and Dean, starved and tortured in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, their faces haggard and drawn; Bellatrix standing over me with her wand, her sleeves pushed up, displaying her own mark; Voldemort looking like the impersonated skull, white with his drawn in skin and eyes, and the snake always around him; Harry, my dear Harry, always in pain when he connected to Voldemort through his horcrux; Andromeda's entire family gone; friends lying in the great hall after the battle, their eyes closed, peaceful but forever gone; Teddy never knowing his parents; fanatical followers of a maniac shooting curses at fleeing teenagers in the ministry; Sirius falling through the veil and Harry grieving; Molly bent over Fred's dead body weeping her heart out, and on and on and pain and grieve and despair in every vision. It clogged up my throat and drew together into a ball in my stomach.

I groaned at the glut of pain sweeping over me from the emotions in the visions. I shook under the onslaught of memories, and my head fell down on my forehead under the weight. I bit my lip when the emotional pain overwhelmed me, to feel something that I had under control. I could end this little pain in my lip by letting go. The other pains, I couldn't. And when the sensation of warm skin under my forehead reached its docking point, I became aware of where I was, naked on top of a likewise naked and highly aroused man with this evil mark on his arm. I yelped and quickly rolled to the side, dragging a blanket over my naked body, covering myself in the process.

As beautiful as it had been with Draco, as much as I possibly wanted him, we could never, ever be, I thought at that moment, suffocating the warm feeling I'd just had minutes ago. He was connected to the horrors. He would always remind me of it, even if not intentionally. I wouldn't be able to live with it. The thought hardened around the lump in my stomach like a ball of hard cheese and pushed my eyes to tear up through my tight throat.

Draco felt and saw my stiffening and freezing, and he groaned when I rolled off before he could react to anything.

"Granger, what …" was as far as he got before my sobbing cut off his sentence.

"Hermione, what the … what happened?" he said turning to me. He tried to pull me in his arms, but all I saw was the mark on his arm and I swatted at it. I was freaking out, I'm ashamed to admit. This was so not the clear-headed Hermione I usually thrived to be.

When I accidentally hit his cheek in my batting, he withdrew to a safe distance and growled from there: "Granger, you're killing me. What's your problem? And how do we fucking fix it?" he ended on a yell and fixed me with his piercing stare. I winced.

"You can't just turn a man on with your allure, and then turn him away. That's cruel. Are you cruel, Granger, or are you afraid of your own seductive powers, which would make so much sense since you hardly ever had sex before I came along? I basically raised your experience level single handed by fifteen hundred per cent," he snarled, from a safe distance.

I halted. Seductive powers? What was he talking about? Since when was I seductive? Woman with brains, hello?

He kept on drawling, the very picture of Draco Malfoy in class, ridiculing my existence. "What is it? Do you need time to catch up with your virginal personality after all the shagging we've done in the last few days? Because that's fine, you know. If you don't want to sleep with me, because it's become too much, it's alright. I don't need to sleep with you. I want to, very much, but I don't need to. I need you in my life. And if I can only have that in celibacy, then so be it. I'll have to release every once in a while to not go crazy, but you won't mind me doing that, won't you? Since you don't want it. But I need to know. You're killing me with your hot and cold treatment. What's it going to be?"

Oh, that's right, put the blame on me, Mister. "Will you release with another woman?" I snarled no less than he had done.

"Of course," he sneered.

"No," I growled and sat up, holding the blanket to me. "You won't."

He followed in his uncovered upstanding glory. "Then tell me what you want, for fuck's sake! You can't claim and not want me. That's insane. It'll make me insane. What do you want? What do you need? Do you want me on my knees? Do you want me on a leash? Do you need to control me? Do you need to humiliate me more than I have done to you until the quota is filled? Do you want me to scuttle behind you on my knees, on a leash, naked, until you realize that our feelings are genuine? How can I convince you? Tell me, because I swear to every known deity if you keep doing this, I will snap."

This is it, I thought. What I had been afraid of before, he was already withdrawing. I felt like a rabbit in front of the snake, unable to move but deadly sure that this was it. Something bad was going to happen. He was finally going to turn on me. He was fed up with my craziness and he would say that I wasn't worthy of his time and get up and leave. Or he would laugh terribly that I had been naïve enough to believe that he could love me. Draco scrutinized me for a full two minutes, while I churned imaginations of what was going to happen over in my mind. Even though I didn't fully trust him to be genuine in his affections, I still liked to have him around. I didn't trust him for his mark on his arm. Taken voluntarily or not, it signified his alignment in this war. Against muggleborns in the wizarding world. And I was a muggleborn. So, against me. But he wasn't against me. Not me, personally. So, in principal, he was against muggleborns but not against me. His principle was wrong. But what did that say about him? Oh, gawd, it was so complicated. So far, it had been good with him. I was just waiting for the second shoe to drop. For quite a while now. Perhaps I should go and check, if there was a second shoe.

I covered my face with my hands and took a deep breath. I couldn't help my impulses. And looking at a dark mark in a moment of quiet love making was simply bound to shake me up, wasn't it? I pulled my hands away and looked down on his arm where the blasted thing was. He followed my gaze.

"It's this, isn't it?" He raised his left arm, displaying his mark prominently. I swallowed. Even though we disabled it magically, it was still there as a marker for what we'd been, wasn't it?

"Hermione!" He tried to get my attention. "You just freaked because of my mark, didn't you?"

I sent him a pleading look. What was I to do? I knew, it wasn't fair to him, but I couldn't help it.

I saw the fury building in his eyes, fire over ancient rock. "You're still afraid that I turn back into the old Draco Malfoy, when the magic stops; a totally ridiculous idea, magic stopping. But you are afraid of the Malfoy who would laugh and bully and ridicule you. Who would condone your torture and death. That's it, isn't it? Even though the one time you were tortured, I was there to help. I was halfway out of my mind but I actually did help. Not enough, and it's no redemption for my humiliating you, but I did help you."

Yes, he did help me. But we were already adjuncted when he did. He had been bound to. Dumbledore said the magic would always be there. But how could he be so sure? It came out of nowhere, who guaranteed that it didn't vanish again? And if I fell in love with this perfect-for-me wizard and the magic vanished and he turned back into the old one, it would destroy me. There was the danger. If I fell deeply in love with him, and I was as good as there, and he would turn against me, it would rip me apart. I couldn't lose another loved one through magic again. Not like this. I couldn't lose myself in it. I had nothing else to give. Wasn't that dangerous? I had to protect myself, didn't I?

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. I wasn't quite sure what I apologized for.

"I don't want your pity party for the pain that I endured for you, Granger," he growled. "I did it because I wanted to do it, and I would do it again."

He must have seen my frantic thoughts about love and falling and failing and losing in my eyes, and clarity and resolve formed in his clear grey, like the sun coming up on a winter morning. Ancient fire. It nudged in my brain, this repetitive thought.

"Can you live with the responsibility of crippling me again? Because that's what he did. And that's what you would be doing, if you left me hang to dry. You made me fall in love with you, and now you better deal with it. It's your responsibility now. You may not have done it intentionally, but you did, and now deal with it. I can't go back to the emotional cripple I was before. I won't. But I need your help to stay here."

If he had told me he was a shoo-in for Minister of Magic, I couldn't have been more shocked. My mouth hung open and my eyes couldn't possibly be any bigger. Until his next statement.

"And so is this mark my responsibility, even though I didn't get it voluntarily," he continued at my lack of response with narrowed eyes. "You know what? I'm cutting it out."

My jaw unhinged. "What?"

His face showed a blazing white hot fury I wasn't quite sure whether to admire or to feel frightened about. He looked calm on the outside. But I saw the fire in his eyes. A slow burning fire, determination of getting what he wanted. As a Malfoy, he was used to get what he wanted. This time, he would work for it, his determination showed. He was going to do whatever was needed to get me to understand why I belonged to him.

He needed me to be here for him, and I couldn't do it because I wasn't really sure if I could trust him because of this stupid thing on his arm. Hadn't that been what we fought for, not to discriminate against fellow wizards and witches because of who they were? Hadn't that been the whole point? We had condemned the Death Eaters for their cruelty against others and now I was doing the same. I was torturing this young man who was asking me to trust him, and I couldn't pull myself together enough to even try. I was so fucked up.

Why would he love me? Why would he overthrow everything he knew for me, a muggleborn, and make his life exceedingly difficult? All for love? Why? How?

"Feel it," my little sane voice nagged again. My only true friend in the vastness of my brain, even if I didn't like it sometimes. "Feel him. Feel how he fits you. Feel his body align with yours, feel his magic interlocking with yours, feel him swing on the same frequency as you. He's yours. He will never fit anybody else as well as you. And he knows it. He'll never want to. He's not giving anything up, he doesn't want it any other way. There is no other way. He completes you and you complete him. There's no why and how. It just is. Universal truth." They exploded in my mind, these thoughts. He loved me, he fit me, he used to hate me, he wanted me, he completed me, he cared for me, Voldemort was dead, Draco was able to do all that, eventually, openly, publicly – if I let him. **I** was the hindrance. **I** was blocking him. Just like I had blocked the other boys and men when I had focused on him.

Would Draco and I be able to do the unconceivable? Combining both sides?

"I'm cutting it out," Draco confirmed. "I don't want you to ever look at it again and be afraid. In fact, I want you to do it. You can rip from my flesh everything you abhor, everything you hated and still hate about me, and about him. Put all your grief and pain and hurts and desperation into it. I don't want to see you in pain. You offered to take my pain once, and now, you can give it back. Give it to me."

It clicked in place, what he was saying. "Oh, no, no, no, Draco, no. I can't hurt you," I groaned in terror.

He scoffed. "Remember the Cruciatus? The one you endured and the part I pulled?"

I lowered my head. "Yes, I remember."

His face came close to mine and he spoke almost against my lips. "This will hurt but not as much as the Cruciatus that you endured, and not as much as you would hurt me if you didn't get your head together and didn't love me back. And I know you do. I just want you to know that you do. I can't live without you, Hermione. I've never felt as safe as when you overpowered me last night. I'll wither and die like a plant without sunlight. I need your warmth to survive." He paused to breathe. "If you can't live with this mark, then I'm cutting it out."

Looking into his eyes, blazing as black ice, I realized, there were different kinds of pain: the physical ones and the emotional ones, and you have one guess which one is worse.

It was all there in his eyes – pains, hurt, hopelessness, anger, fury, hate, carved in stone with a blazing white hot blade, but left to whither and fade. All he wanted now was the fire that moved and warmed him. Red-orange fire, the colour of life, eruptions of fire, dancing fire in a hearth, warmth and laughter – from me. He wanted it from me. And I wasn't giving it to him. I cruelly withheld his happiness. I shuddered. I didn't deserve this man. I tortured him. Ginny had said so.

I was horrified. "You'll bleed."

He shrugged and smirked. "So? As if I never bled before. You can heal it after, close the skin over. Don't you have any Dittany?"

I did have Dittany. It was still left over from my little beaded bag, from when we were running. But I still couldn't imagine how I could willingly harm another human being without threat, even if it was Draco Malfoy, tormentor of my childhood.

"You'll have a huge scar on your forearm," I said unnecessarily.

Draco just looked at me, level with a quirked eyebrow, until I realized what stupid thing I'd said. He grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to him. "Take your wand," he ordered.

And I did. Not because I wanted to cut and hurt him. But because it was so good that somebody else took the lead; that the responsibility didn't rest entirely with me. Usually Harry had taken the lead but even with his leadership, he had relied heavily on my expertise, on my bookish knowledge, and his leadership had depended on what I fed him. This young man just telling me to follow his orders tapped a want in me I hadn't quite known I possessed. It's not that I wanted to be dominated in general. But it was good to know that somebody could. Ron could have never done it. And Harry, well, was Harry. My brother.

I poised my wand over his arm, but I couldn't say the spell. My wand started shaking.

"Do it," he said imperiously with a nod to me.

I gripped my wand tighter and saw his eyes crinkle in the corners, when he frowned and tensed certain muscles to control the expected sting in his arm.

"Come on, Granger. Cut it out," I heard him speak.

I tried to concentrate on the spell but it wouldn't come. And with all the additional power we had, that was a clear sign that I didn't want to do it. I still couldn't hurt another human being if not in self-defence.

Was it worth it? Did I need Draco to hurt himself for me to lose the pain in my chest? The pain from Voldemort's doing Draco was only associated with? Not really. Would I be able to accept him with the mark on his arm, especially when I knew he didn't take it voluntarily?

I groaned. I didn't know. This thing just epitomized evil. Things would be so much easier if he didn't have it. Denial would have done the rest. The mark was undeniably there. But I couldn't cut it out of his skin.

I bit my lip again and deepened the already existing wound. This little pain was all I needed. I welcomed it. When I thought about responsibility for healing the wizarding world, I remembered all the people who would not heal anymore. This little pain was a reminder of the fact that I survived where others had not. Worthy people. Magically powerful people had undeservedly died when I had survived. It hurt and I couldn't keep from wincing but I continued biting my lip. It constricted around the lump in my middle and pulled tight, suffocating me. It made proper breathing difficult but I kept my eyes steady on the blackened skin.

I bit my lip harder until I felt something running down my chin. This little pain was what I needed to quiet all other pains, all the ones that I had tried to expel from my brain for the last few months. But having been reminded of my duties, they were back now and made my head burst: the grief, the losses, the fact that I lost a year of my young live trudging with Harry through the underbrush, trying to find a way to outwit the most reckless and murderous wizard in history, the fear of being caught and killed, the fear of them finding my parents, my parents who had nothing to do with it at all, being punished for my actions, for who and what I was, the regret that my life didn't go as planned, becoming a member of the Weasley family, the fear that I didn't know how my life would go on, stuck between a rock and a hard place because I didn't know where to go if the magic was forcing me in one direction.

Funnily enough, there was no pain associated with Draco Malfoy. His bullying and teasing through our time at Hogwarts was pitiable in comparison.

His hand over my hand ripped me out of my thoughts and made me realize that I had stared at the mark for quite a few seconds without doing anything. Oh, and what a rip it was. He jeered and it reminded me even more of our former times at Hogwarts.

"Where's your Gryffindor courage, princess? Isn't that what you Gryffindors are big on? Courage and Bravery? It's all hot air, in my opinion. Where's your courage now, princess?" he jeered.

I looked up into his gleaming grey eyes. His glance swerved once to the blood likely running over my chin, but he simply looked back into my eyes. I bit my lip again, this time in irritation. Who was he to tell me I wasn't courageous? Hadn't I proved my courage enough? I focused on the mark again and shuddered. By Godric Gryffindor, I hated that thing.

"Too chicken to give a Death Eater a skin deep cut?" I heard his voice right in my ear. I hadn't noticed how he had bent forward. Hermione Granger, pay attention.

Death Eater. He was no Death Eater. He had been forced to take the mark, I just knew it. He had been a very young man, following in his father's steps. And now, he had no problem being with me, and he was connected to me through a beautiful purple magic, which was happier the closer we were. A magic that was made to expunge the world of dark magic, more or less. Draco Malfoy had been set up to help purging the world of dark magic, and he couldn't wait to get started. There was just the little problem of my obstinacy.

"What's wrong, Granger?" he drawled. I shuddered again. This was the Draco Malfoy that you didn't want to meet in the hallway because he spelt trouble. "Afraid you splatter some blood on your precious skin?" Saying this, he crawled his free hand up my thigh, spooking me, nudging up the blanket that was still covering it. I shivered and pulled back a little to be able to look in his face. His eyes caught mine as soon as the angle was wide enough to see. I saw them narrow and the hint of a sneer on his smooth face, and I felt his grip tighten on my thigh. His eyes were still bright, though. Odd. Which Malfoy was this? The dangerous one or the one I felt safe with?

"What's the matter, Granger? Is your courage failing you?" he hissed against my cheek.

That stung. He knew I hated failing. Heck, everybody knew I hated failing. To infer … I gripped my wand tighter. His hand squeezed on top of mine.

His head tipped forward a bit. I couldn't see his eyes anymore but I heard his hiss. "Still no? Why, one would think you like this mark, on my arm. Flirting with danger, aren't you? Having a little tete-a-tete with a young handsome Death Eater, haven't you, princess? He's a better fuck than the weasel, isn't he? Do you think you would have fared better with them? Live would have been so much more interesting for you. More … challenging?" I shuddered again when I felt his breathe stroke over my ear shell and heard more of his hissing.

"With your power, do you think he would have liked to have you on his side? Would he put you above his most faithful servant? Could you have been the one to torture Bellatrix?"

I pulled back with a jerk to see his triumphant gleaming eyes. He got me. I choked. The bloody bastard. How could he …? To think …. I would never…

"You bloody bastard, I would never …" I screamed at him at the same time as he said "_Diffindo" _and my wand cut a straight line over the cranium of the skull.

For one moment, I was torn. I wanted to get this thing of his arm, so we could start anew. But I didn't want to hurt him either. I couldn't hurt him. I used to help. I whimpered.

He didn't move a muscle in his face. I heard his breath shake a little, though, at the sting of the cut. However, he held tight and angled our hands, and the next cut went down the right side of the mark, ending right below the serpent's head. I felt more than heard or saw his jaw clenching, when he bit down on his teeth.

"No!" I struggled to loosen my hand, and he couldn't do the next cut or risk cutting into his leg or … other important parts, accidentally. But we both looked down at the damage. He angled his arm a little downward and the blood started running down his arm from the first cut. It ran in a straight line from the upper left, where the first point of incision had been, to the lower right corner, nixing the skull in red and beheading the snake in the lower corner. It was an impressive sight, I had to admit. I gulped.

When I raised my head, I saw Malfoy looking back at me. The same Malfoy I had seen at Hogwarts for six years, when we had thrown insults at each other in the hallways for five of those years. Where he used to control his facial expression, he could never belie the vividness of his eyes. But they were flat now, while he was biting away the pain from the cuts, and his blood dripped of his arm onto my transformed bed. And it was so useless.

I had seen those eyes before, deep at night in sixth year. I never wanted to see that kind of pain in his eyes ever again. And I was certainly not going to contribute to it. I pulled my hand away with a jerk, and my wand fell on the bed. Anger boiled in me. It hissed and bubbled in my stomach and squirmed uncomfortably. Like a snake slashing in my innards.

With the angry bubbling in my stomach, one thought stood clearly out. Draco wanted to show me that he was more than his mark on his arm and his contribution to the wrong side of the war. He was even willing to cut it out of his own skin for me to see behind this obvious marker. But I had fought so long against it, had my convictions so strongly set up against them, against the ones opposing me, my very being, that I couldn't simply turn back. But it choked me. The grief of the war choked me, all these friends I had lost because of the wrong side of the war, his wrong side. But the war was over, his side had lost, and the sides were supposed to disappear. And I was doing my utmost to cling to them. And it wasn't fair to him. And what I really grieved about weren't my dead friends, although I grieved them as well, but I grieved that I thought I couldn't be with him. Because I wanted it. And I felt it was so wrong to want this, although it felt so right.

I screamed at him, fully enraged: "How is it courageous to add pain to misery? Why should I have to hurt you? I don't want to hurt you. It was the whole thing Voldemort did, and we don't want to continue that. We want to do the exact opposite. No more hurting for the pains sake."

"The mark is still there, Granger. You didn't cut it out," he said wearily.

"Even if we did cut it out, the scar would always remind us of what's been there. It makes no sense to cut it out. It'll only hurt you. And I don't want more pain. I had enough of pain for a lifetime." The snake in my stomach did a kick sideways that felt decidedly uncomfortable. It made me angrier. "I don't want to add more pain to the world. There's been plenty. It needs to stop. We were going to stop it. You and I."

The smirk spreading on his face could have competed with the sun. It was blinding. It took my breath. Oh, mother of Merlin, he was so beautiful. The lump in my stomach jiggled a little.

"Aaand she's back. Welcome home, fierceness." He gave me a peck on the lips. "I missed you, babe."

I forgot to breathe at that moment. No. He couldn't have staged the entire thing to kick me out of my low. He meant for me to cut out his mark, didn't he? It wasn't just a shocking device to shake me out of my thoughts? Nobody had ever put as much consideration into my constitution. Not even my parents.

He used my stunned confusion to dip onto my lip. It stung. He said: "You bit yourself," while studying the blood on his finger, rubbing it against his thumb. Finally, he put his finger in his mouth and sucked it clean.

When he pulled it out again, I whispered: "How does it taste?"

He shrugged. "Metallic. Like blood. And a little like you. Want to try mine?" He dipped his index and middle finger in his running blood and put them against my mouth like offering a spoonful of ice cream. I took it.

It was. Just blood. The taste spread only slowly in my mouth. He smeared his fingers over my lip, mixing his blood with the blood from my own bite, mine and his. He kissed me softly and gave the blood layer one good lick. Our mixed blood. If it didn't matter to him anymore, I guessed it didn't really matter. It was all the same, especially when shed. It smelled the same, looked the same, and it was completely useless when not pumping through a living body. And it didn't make a person.

"How does it taste?" He spoke with a passive face, frowning, but his eyes were soft.

"Just like blood. Like every blood." A sob escaped me.

"Do you believe me now?" he spoke against my lips. I caught a whiff of his smell, mixed with the metallic smell of the blood, which made him no less enticing. The wiggle in my stomach turned to a summersault. The something in me that had screamed in frustration, when I had scrambled away from his mark, sighed in relief. I didn't know exactly what it was, but it guided my glance down to take in his lips, which had already called to me earlier, further down to the planes of his chest and taut stomach and further, where a certain appendix was squeezed between his thighs and strained to come out.

"Believe what?" I asked breathlessly. I saw his eyes darkening when I didn't pull away from his closeness, and something glinted in their depths, something I had never seen before in Draco Malfoy.

He dipped a little closer. "Do you believe now that the magic doesn't change you? That our magic, our compow does not make you do things that you don't want? You are still you. You are still Hermione Granger, who wouldn't hurt a fly; who fiercely defends everything that cannot stand up for itself."

I swallowed. His closeness made me dizzy. Something below my navel pulled me badly to jump his bones and shag him senseless. It was the same hollow feeling that had pulled me last night, when I fought him. I mean, how many women had a willing naked Draco Malfoy on their bed? Right. And how many passed up the opportunity? Right. For good reason. And I'm not stupid, I can do the math.

"Did it change you?" I asked, forcing my clogged throat to speak.

He smirked. The question had been obvious. And so was the answer. But I wanted to hear him say it out loud. "No," he said expectedly. "I changed myself. With your help."

This should have been enough. In everybody's normal books, it would have been good enough to sit back and take it and let the rest of the story of Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger unfold. Nobody can guarantee a happily ever after.

But there was something I was still waiting for, and it didn't come. It had been one of the reasons why I appreciated Draco's aggravation somewhat. Harry and Ron had always yielded to me. They had let me tell them whatever, and followed my instructions to the letter. I had been one of the team, a full member; they hadn't even seen that I was a girl until much later. I had liked that Victor asked me out, he was older and likely more experienced, but it had been a fluke. Nothing but a sloppy kiss. My short history with Ron had given me more of the same, there was just no opposition. Where ever I went, I was Hermione Granger, the brain that nobody could compete against, and nobody had dared to.

Unlike Draco Malfoy. He questioned me constantly, and I liked it. He offered opposition on the intellectual level, and that was good. But the fact remained that I had been the one who had jumped him the first time. And he had come crawling to me, sat by my bedside at St. Mungo's and simply accompanied me home after. It had developed from there and at one point, jealous over my friendship with Theo, he had claimed me. I had liked that very much, and I had realized what I had missed in my previous encounters with men.

Despite my fear of failure, I was a powerful witch. I had brought pureblood, powerful Draco Malfoy to his knees magically. And now I needed him to get up, brush off his knees and show me that he was equal. That although I wasn't weaker than him, as I had proven, I wasn't stronger either. Because if I was the strongest of them all, who could give me directions where to grow? Who could give me directions, period?

I stared at him like a lion facing a snake. Cautious of the first move and expectant that there would be a move. The air was thick but nobody moved a muscle.

"Courage failing you again, Granger? What is it with you that you can risk your life for other people but can't take one thing for yourself without analysing it to death?"

The courage-failing-comment stung again, and I felt my forehead furrow. It wasn't a matter of my courage. Why didn't he understand?

Poised against each other, lips millimetres from touch, we kneeled and locked each other in our gazes. He waited for me, and I waited for him; to say something, to do something, to do the right thing. When the seconds ticked by and nobody moved, I finally exhaled disappointedly and let my shoulders go. I guessed it wasn't meant to be.

He had asked me if I needed to control him. I didn't. I didn't need to make up for the humiliation he had tried to put me through. I exactly didn't need it. I needed him to show me that he could be the man. And he wasn't getting it. If I told him, then the whole point was lost. I didn't need anybody to act the man. I'd had enough of that farce with Ron.

I turned away from him, wanting to scoot of the bed and see if I could find some ice cream in my freezer, when his hand on my waist arrested me.

"Where do you think you are going?" he snarled.

I shrugged. "Finding some ice cream or chocolate. Best soul soothers in the world."

"But I wasn't done here," he replied with a glint in his eyes.

I snorted. "I was."

He pulled me back to his front with one quick move. "I just mutilated my arm, so you wouldn't have to shudder and freak every time you look at me, and you don't even have the courtesy of expressing your gratitude?"

I rolled my eyes. "Thank you, Draco, for making me cut your skin, in an attempt to remove an evil mark whose creator has been an intimate part of your life."

He scoffed. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you. You should leave it to somebody who can use it better."

I snorted again. "Like you, you mean?"

He sneered back. "Perhaps. At least somebody, who has a reason to be angry at life and make jokes about it. Not you, little princess, who gets everything handed on a silver platter."

I barked a laugh. "That's rich, coming from you, the boy who literally got everything handed on a silver platter. I at least worked for what I am."

His eyes narrowed to slits, he hissed: "You think I didn't work? You think it was easy to walk on eggshells in my house to not spook any of these crazy fanatics? You think I didn't work to contain my emotions so they wouldn't betray me? You think it wasn't hard to receive this damn thing? Do you know how he got me to take it?"

I just stared. I knew it hadn't really been voluntary but I didn't know the exact circumstances.

When I didn't say anything and just looked at his darkened face, he told me: "He had Bellatrix train her wand directly at her sister, and make me choose: my mother's life or the mark. Taking the mark was excruciating but it was a walk in the park against the imagined pain of losing my mother."

There was so much wrong with this statement, I didn't even know where to start. So, I didn't say anything and just continued to stare at him.

"Who do you think you are, princess, thinking your childhood passed you by? To think you have a subscription to rightness, to hurt, and to feel short changed by life?"

When I didn't answer, he snarled in my face: "Because I certainly did, especially when I looked at you and your wonder boys having a jolly good time."

I tried to put my hand on his, but he slapped it away.

"Then one day, there was this one hope, one silver line on the horizon in my life, and I was starting to breathe again. Then I realized that unfortunately, it was bound to the most stubborn and obstinate witch that ever existed on earth. And I am reduced to begging her to get her act together," he growled. "And I've had it. I'm taking what's mine."

He pushed into me and I had no choice but to lean backward. This was the dangerous Draco Malfoy, who had grown into his power and was not a coward anymore. Who additionally wielded quiet a lot of power admittedly. I didn't want to fight him unnecessarily. I wasn't afraid, though.

"Draco, what are you doing?" I breathed against him.

He snarled in my face. "Just what I said. I'm done accommodating you. I'm done accommodating anybody. My father, his crazy friends, my crazy relatives, Voldemort, the public, the ministry. I'll stop negotiating and just claim and take what's mine. With the extra power given to me, it should be a piece of cake."

I inhaled sharply. "Draco, no, that's not what this power is about. You can't abuse it. We can't do that."

"You can do what you want. I'm doing what I want. Apparently, there is no "we"."

"If there is no "we", then why are we sitting naked on my bed?"

"You tell me. I thought, I would give you some time to come to terms with whatever was going on in your bushy-haired head. And then, we were going to have a good shag, but you freaked and I was forced to cut myself, and then you wanted to leave without a word. So, tell me, what we are doing here?"

I saw his blue magic swirling around him, illuminating his angry, snarling face, his eyes glimmering dangerously, bent over me like a panther over his prey. This was the very picture of the dangerous Draco Malfoy I had thought about. Only I would have never thought that I liked it. I thought I had been afraid of him turning into this version of Draco Malfoy. The one that snarled at me. Dangerous. Powerful and connected to the dark. I had never thought that this particular version of Draco Malfoy made my womb quiver and the lump do a little conga dance, shaking its tension out. Like a warming up routine. I felt warmth coming up. Fire. Ancient fire again. Where did that thought always come from?

Draco was having it all out. Pushing further backwards until I toppled over and fell flat on my bed, he crawled over me. "I thought you needed reliability and a man who's a little more understanding than I usually am, and I pulled up all my resources to be more like your friends. More friendly, more yielding. But that got me nowhere. I'm done, distorting myself to fit somebody else's needs. I've done it all my life. I stopped the insults, and I stopped the m word, but that's all concession you are going to get from me. The rest of me you will take the way it is. I have no warts, being Draco Malfoy, but my past, snarkiness, good looks, money, power and all, you will take. And you will take it now, because I'm done waiting for you to make up your mind."

Both of his arms left and right to my head, caging me in, his taut body over mine, stomach skin touching, breathing became difficult. A furious Draco Malfoy was surely a dangerous thing, wasn't it? Only, I'd had one last night and I had overpowered him. It had been close, though, and I strongly suspected that he had let me overpower him. So, this snarling Draco Malfoy was a serious adversary. He certainly had the power to take me on. And I liked it. Morgana, feeling my juices pool between my legs, I wanted him to impale me right then and there. But I would have rather faced ten enraged Death Eaters on my own than admitting it out loud. I couldn't deny it to myself, though, that our positioning made me salivate. This was the real danger I had sensed. He was killing me. He was killing the bookwormish, dried-up virginal Hermione Granger. One little death at a time. And I was in danger of losing myself in it. Because it felt so bloody good. I swallowed. He saw it.

And he understood. I saw the light go up in his eyes.

"You like this." Even though he was still in angry mode, he couldn't hide the small smile playing around his mouth, the fact that he noticed and appreciated my response to his forceful advancement. He lowered himself closer to my face, on his elbows. Ooh, boy, do it already. With narrowed eyes, he hissed in my face, and I liked how it tasted.

"You want to be ravished, just like the other women. I thought you were different, in light of your recent turnabout, that good girls like you need it gentler. But you want the bad boy as well, you want to be fucked against the wall just like everybody else. I'm not quite sure if I should be disappointed that you aren't that different after all."

"Not always," I squeaked, torn between swooning and escaping. "I want variation. And I don't want the bad boy, I just want …"

"Granger," he growled. "Shut up. I understand you perfectly. I'm not your stupid weasel."

And then he pushed in. Without warning, without foreplay, without warming up or checking if I was ready, he just came in. And Godric, was I ready.

Even though it felt as if I could use yet a little more lubrication, he was perfect where he was. He stilled, once he had pushed in, waiting to see my reaction, waiting to see if he hurt me. I had bent backward at his move but when I came back down and saw his eyes, I knew that he couldn't pull back out, if his life had depended on it. And I loved it.

We both sighed in relief. The same way, you are all anxious for weeks to tell a boy you are in love with him, and when you finally brought up the courage, he kissed you and told you he was in love with you, too. That kind of relief. Heavenly. Makes you forget all the previous hardship.

This was right. He belonged there, right there between my legs. The tingling from the sensation of being so nicely stretched by him went into my centre and heated everything.

Looking into his eyes now, they were full of stormy emotions, of pain old and new. But I also saw the new in Draco Malfoy, the something I'd never seen before. Hope. Hope for a future. With me.

He – wanted – me.

Our kisses were punishing hard, teeth knocked against teeth, lips were bitten hard, without more blood, they already tasted of blood, and pulled like lions rip flesh off bones. Who was punishing whom wasn't clear. And it didn't matter anyway. I felt the wound on my lip closing as we went. And when I touched his arm where the mark was, it was closing as well. No more blood.

Moving my hands up into his hair, I pulled his head even closer and his moan went directly into my mouth. I swallowed it and went back to attack his lips with all I was worth. But I wanted more. More heat.

"Move," I said between little nips of his lips, rubbing my hips against his. "Oh, please, move."

"Keep moving like that and I won't need to, Granger," he snickered. He did one thrust and shuddered in delight, his warm exhalation blowing directly over my face. "But I'm glad to have the woman back who wants to fuck me and rip my head off at the same time."

"Move," I snarled, undulating my hips to keep the friction going. "Malfoy, move."

He snickered again and thrust, once, twice, thrice. With every trust his eyes became darker and his face longer, the smirk melting away to a determined jaw.

I felt his warm breath in my face and saw his grey eyes blazing. Ancient. There it was again. Blazing hot and ancient. Ancient fire.

Oh, God, to burn all this hate away and discover love below. To be free to love.

With a snarl, he picked up speed and thrust earnestly, surging into me, clipping that sensitive spot on my front wall from time to time. Diving deep, we were rutting like animals in no time. This was no sophisticated love making, no seduction, no mutual pleasure seeking, just plain mating; animalistic, carnal, primal, raw, and simplistic like the fact of a predator approaching and you know that your end is coming. You can watch the beauty of the sunshine in its fur, as it moves, the muscles moving the gleaming fur, but you know this is the last time you'll see the sun. It feels right in its finality, though. At least, the beauty of life is the last thing you'll see. My hands and legs on his back, I felt Draco's muscles moving, clenching, releasing, a complete circle of pistoning moves, beautiful in its execution. Shuttling in and out of my body, I marvelled at the beauty of this man shagging me to my heart's desire.

My heart. My want. What did my heart want? Was this what I wanted? What I needed?

A piece clicked into place. I needed Draco's tight fit in me and the way his head banged against my inner entrance when we shagged. The exquisite feeling electrified my lower body. My root. My root that told me what I needed, and which had been neglected for so long, tilting me off balance. I needed him to open this particular part in me that was tied to my own need. Harry had been right, I needed help to see things as they really were. My focus was frozen in place, focused on other's needs. I had been traipsing through the world for so long, helping Harry save the world, that I had lost view of myself. And I needed Draco Malfoy to satisfy this particular need. And he did it so well. He held me together by the root he was repeatedly impaling, the same way his magic was holding me together. And his magic was him. The thought electrified me, through and through, and I felt his thrusts all the more. The heat from the friction surged through me and the piece clicked into place with a loud noise: a loud male moan to be precise.

"Hermione."

Digging his hands in my hair, he moved with quick precise pushes, bringing us up to the brink in mere minutes. I loved it. I loved the way how he had finally taken the initiative when I had been at a loss. If he could do it once, I was sure he could do it again. So, there was a chance that next time I was lost in my abundance of knowledge and confusing thoughts, he would take the lead and show me the way out. With whatever means, he was creative. And virile. To drive the point home, he pulled my legs up and slammed in with the rhythm of a fast runner hitting the pavement. Oh, yes, Draco. I moaned.

Draco didn't hold back expressing how it pleased him. "Oh, gawds, it feels so good, … it's hot, … ha, … and so tight, … so wet, … ha, … Hermione, … ha, … ha, … haa, … Hermione …" His hands entangled in my hair, he pulled my face to his to give me a scorching kiss, one of those that send an impulse directly where it belongs.

Staring up in his thrilled expression, his heated eyes, I couldn't believe that it was me who made him so hot. But it was. I did this. Even though I didn't know how to do it, I had the power to ignite this wizard to the point of explosion, making him lose control. Ginny had always told me that I had a certain allure to some wizards who thought a smart woman was sexy. But I had never understood. I never felt alluring. Until this wizard came and showed me that I was. The thought heated my centre tantalizingly and I felt the knot loosening.

Feeling his tongue play with mine the way we had played our magical energies around each other, turning, sliding, gliding, he humped me to climax. I felt it coming, the heat flooding me, and Draco could tell by the way I squirmed and huffed against his skin.

"Let it come, Hermione," he spoke against my chin, while pumping into me relentlessly. I felt his teeth scraping my skin and his lips caressing it. I loved his duality. I loved it, how he could be tender and biting at the same time and you never knew what to expect. It kept me on my toes.

The tingling in my belly intensified when I looked at this beautiful man pounding into me. His sweaty body, his eyes closed to slits as if in pain, he was gasping in need as he slammed in, deeper and deeper, as if he would bury himself in me entirely if his moves were succinct enough.

"Hermione," he moaned. "Fuck, Hermione. Haaa."

"Draco," I moaned. The heat spreading in my belly made me lightheaded, as if my brain was suffocating. My brain was not important in these moments. What was important, what I needed, was taking in his seed when he came in me. Looking up into his black pools of want, I felt so in the right place as I hadn't in a long time. This primal want for connection left no room for error. I wanted him to explode in me. Because it was right. I pulled my inner muscles, knowing that if I exploded he would be right behind.

"Haa, Hermione," he promptly reacted. I pulled again and then once more and then I felt the fire spreading from the point of friction, spreading up to my chest and engulfing me whole. I moaned and stretched my head back. I shuddered and tensed and shivered and felt my legs shaking against Draco's sides, and it didn't stop. There was an arch of tension but it had no end, like the rainbow, pot of gold and all.

"Granger," he whimpered. "Granger, what are you doing to me?"

I heard Draco grunt and whimper and I knew he was close, but I was still tight like a bow. And while the heat flooded my body, from my toes to my crown, making me shake in unreleased, ever building tension, it struck my mind again, the question: what would be my heart's desire?

And my mind showed me an answer. It showed me in quick flashes reflected in a mirror surface, how I stood in front of an audience. I delivered an argument for re-integration programs for werewolves, who were willing to undergo wolfsbane treatment, with strict and stringent evaluations. And when I finished, the audience jumped up and applauded, my platinum blond husband in the first row, clapping and looking smug.

And it showed my husband standing behind me, his blond head next to my brown curls, holding his arms around me, kissing the side of my face, smiling at our reflection and looking back at me with desire. He would hold his hands on my swollen stomach lovingly where I carried our first child, a boy. He would say something scathing and I would lash out at him appalled and he would snicker and kiss me passionately.

And then I saw a small family walking through endless meadows, a blond man, a brunette woman, holding hands, and two lovely straw blond children with grey eyes.

And in yet another reflection, I saw us working our magic, diving into power, flashes of light bristling, forming it, and mastering it, together.

And yet in another reflection, I saw darkness and two sweaty naked bodies humping each other in multiple positions, in multiple places, moaning, quivering, shaking, clinging, devouring each other in passion. As we did now. And I wanted this. With him.

"Draco," I moaned. "Draco." I didn't know what I was actually asking. Just that there was this feeling blooming in me, behind all this shivering tension, and I didn't know what was to become of it. It scared me but I wanted it at the same time, the release.

"I'm here, babe," he spoke right against my lips, thrusting his hips, with a soft kiss, and then another and another. "I'll hold you. Just let go."

"I can't," I whimpered. "I want to but I can't. I'll explode with it."

"Yes, you can," he whispered. I felt his warm breathe and felt safe in his spicy scent wafting around me. "Let it take you away. Just give in." He moaned and shivered. "Just let it take you. I have only seconds."

My predator, ripping me out of my familiar and comfortable shell and throwing me in the unknown future, where nothing had been written yet. I, we would have to do the writing, we would have to make the history. I was afraid. I didn't have more to give.

And just then, Draco bit me gentle in my throat. In the old language of all living things, it meant: I dominate you, I give, you have to take whatever I give you, so take. Like the sky gives rain to the earth and the earth has to take it. She has to lie back and receive. And it is right because she needs it. She needs the water and the light and the heat from the sky to grow and it makes no sense to try to shelter her or to fight it.

And so I took, where I normally was the one to give. I always gave everything, down to my life power, my very centre of being to everybody in need. It was time for me to take. Like I had taken him to me.

And so I took hold of his hair and pulled and his lips and I sucked and his length in me and I squeezed and his body with my legs around him and I pulled him into me and I took his tongue into my mouth and I pulled my inner muscles so hard that I shook even more. There was something flowing from him to me and I just blindly took it.

I barely heard his moaning whimper before I came with a keening cry. It exploded in my rump. Different from the previous all-encompassing climaxes Draco had led me to, this one was only in my rump, blazing white and scorching hot. My pelvis was enflamed, engulfed in heat and this heat spread up into the centre of my stomach and melted something there, and into my chest and tightened my nipples painfully. My upper body bent back, pushing my pelvis closer to him. He sank deep and deeper and my inner muscles clenched impossibly tight in spasms and Draco couldn't help but react to it.

"Haaa, Granger, haa, Hermione, oh, ooh, oh, hoohohohoooo," he howled his release.

And with the climax resetting all my brain waves, I understood. About pain and want and man and life and energy and Draco.

.

.

_More A/N: Finally, with the help of provocative envy's new story "Difficult" I got the right turn I wanted to express. Check her story, you'll find that she makes Draco and Hermione go through a similar transformation as I do, purely psychological without any magic forcing them. Only she has such better means to write it. Arrgh, I'm envious._

_I credit Rumaan's story "Becoming Mrs Malfoy" for giving me the idea of Hermione's issues with the war coming to the surface and "Mr and Mrs Malfoy" by phlox for giving me finally the clarity of combining their fighting with their desire and that Hermione actually wants it that way. Both these story are fantastic as well, go check them out. _

_Up next is Draco's take on this. And what Hermione understood. ;-)) _

_Once again, not sure when. It is mostly written but I really need to focus on my work this week, I may not have the time._

_Best, y'all_

_M_


	42. Free Hearts

_A/N: Alright, thanks to an anonymous reviewer, who recommended "Annie" by Safetysuit, this is the song for this chapter. And "Stay" by Safetysuit would work as well, lyric-wise. It fits perfectly to what Draco is saying, basically._

_Thanks for reviews, yay, Anon (I've seen parts of avpm on youtube, seems funny, but I haven't watched the entire thing yet). Here you go, enough for a long ride. And thanks for the kick, impeccable timing, as usual. You did give me the push to finally clean up my chapter and get it posted. I don't know how long the next one will take, though. I'm working on it. I have to put everything in there that I cleaned out of this one._

_I'm thinking, though, that I should hurry before they delete everything here on fanfiction__ with all the hype, and it's not conducive to inspiration. So, bear with me (again). In case, my story gets deleted, find me on either the adult fanfiction site or Hawthorne & Vine or I haven't checked out Granger Enchanted and apparently there is a new website called (the) maplebookshelf. I haven't decided yet, which will be the most convenient._

_And ha, Slytherin's Little Princess, don't we all? Scv914, welcome back, I wondered where you were, yeah, constant snarkiness is hard to write, but I like him better that way as well. Nikki98: ah, but it's not just sex. It is actually a development she had to go through. And she did it herself. She took finally, didn't she? Maybe Draco can explain it better in this chapter. He has to realize something as well. And Hermione has more to say. And remember their compow? They had to figure something out. Balance, remember, was always important? Well, read on, my dear. And go, Gryff-Slytherin, thank you. Caught up, didn't you?_

_And I'm so sorry for the long wait but I really, really, really had to concentrate on work, and with that inspiration went on a hike. So, I couldn't for the heck get Hermione's last part right. And that was important to me._

_Originally, these two parts, the last one and this one, were one chapter but I had to split it or it would have been a book on its own. So, the conclusion of it all comes now. And somebody (something) else has to say something, but that will be in the next chapter._

_Okay, people. Draco's POV and Hermione's grand __epiphany__ in this chapter. The reason of reasons._

**.**

**Chapter 35: Free Hearts**

**.**

**Draco's POV:**

We apparated as usual into her foyer. But contrary to our usual urgency to get into each other pants, we just stayed still. Hermione turned to me and just stared at me. I saw the thoughts swirling in her eyes. Potter and the Weaselette had given her fire and now she was trying to burn down the barricades her brain had erected. I knew all about mental barricades. How do you think one is to survive all the crap I grew up with? How do you think Occlumency works but by erecting mental barricades, hiding your secrets behind mental slaps of rock? And you were the only one who could take them down again. If somebody else did it, it would destroy you permanently. So I had to wait.

I saw her eyes moving to take in my face, my hands, me, leaning with my back against her front door.

The war had taken its toll on her, as it had done on all of us. I could only imagine how much, because I would have never gone there. I would have never lived out in the wilderness for months, trying to escape maniacs and solving an unsolvable puzzle at the same time. Or at least I couldn't imagine I would have ever had to. This was nightmare material. That she didn't wake up screaming every night was a miracle.

I could imagine however, how it is to live in constant fear. I could very well relate to being afraid of some stupid incident taking your loved ones away. I never lost the fear of waking up one morning and discover my mother dead or worse. My father was a different story. He was after all responsible for getting us in this mess. I didn't want to lose him either, though, because I would have had to take over. And I could imagine a much better use of my time.

I lost the fear of being tortured at one point, because it became part of the program. It left you with nightmares, but enduring pain was something you could learn. Starting out with small little rejections from your parents, you could proceed easily to bigger hurts and finally to physical pain. It wasn't even particularly difficult when you went in small steps. You could train your body to go numb for the most part and not feel. You could learn to separate your pain-stricken body from your mind. It was hard to come back, though. Once you trained it to not feel, it was difficult to "untrain" it. Perhaps that had been one reason why I needed the intense "personal" contact with women, something to feel at all. And anger was always an easy choice.

The feelings I experienced with and because of Granger, therefore, were sensory overload. They made my head explode at times and my chest burst. I could have gone back to my emotional numbness, if I so desired, in case she decided she didn't want this, but it would have taken another few years of emotional mortification to get there. And I didn't want to. I had spent my entire childhood in emotional starvation, and later in fear. And now the reason for it was dead, once and for all. I thought, I would eventually bring up the audacity to thank Potter. But I definitely didn't want to go back to being an emotional basket case, when I had the chance to grow out of it. I'm not stupid, you know. I knew the consequences of this numbness. I had seen them first hand.

The Malfoy reputation was shot in any case. Portraying the lordly Malfoy heir was so yesterday. We couldn't continue the way we had handled ourselves for the last hundreds of years. Our supremacy and presumptuousness, our arrogance and pride couldn't hold us up anymore. I had to rebuild our family name. Despite my father's constant depreciation of my existence, I was going to be the one who would save his precious little family legacy. It would change, and not in a way he liked. But at least the Malfoy name would still be worth something, when I was done. And I was done pleasing him. I would have to align with the winners of this war, with halfbloods, muggleborns and wizards who didn't believe in blood supremacy, but I would gladly do it, if I could keep Granger.

I almost chuckled, thinking about the way my father would react when he realized that I would use the help of a mudblood to help the Malfoys survive this downfall. I actually stopped thinking of it as a derogatory term. I'd only used it on Hermione anyway, that made it some kind of endearment. My mudblood. Maybe she could start calling me her Death Eater. That would be one hell of a shagging session, if we vexed each other so much that we exploded hopping madly. But there was nothing really wrong with her blood. And I hoped that whatever was wrong with her now was not permanent. Because I wanted her back. I wanted the woman back who had thoroughly enjoyed being with me these last few days, because and despite of the circumstances.

Finally, with a tired sigh, she stepped to me, very close and kissed me sweetly. I returned her kiss but it stayed sweet. I couldn't devour her as I usually did. She didn't want constant passion. She wanted, she needed reliability. And that needed time. Time, I could give her.

I was just hoping that we could keep some shagging schedule, because I wanted it badly. Not for the distracting relief and release I had usually done it for, but for the unique heart opening connection I had with her. Every time I was with her I felt at peace, with myself and the world. Especially when shagging. And it was addictive to feel that way. It took some effing effort to not throw her against the wall and rip her clothes off. But Hermione was the Golden Girl, shagging against the wall would not suit her permanently, I figured. The one time we'd done it, had been mind-bogglingly good, but it wasn't her cup of tea, I assumed. It was likely one of the reasons, she was so confused. Slow love making was more along her line. Staying in control, going one step at a time, having time to reflect. She was after all the brain of the trio, overthinking things was what she did. She would hex me out on the front walk or worse if I tried to just take her, I was sure of it, being the powerful witch that she was. And now extra with the compow. I didn't even want to startle her.

We separated leisurely and she sighed again. I took her hand and led her to the living room. We sank on the couch, beaten, and stretched our legs out in front of us. Quiet. It was quiet.

When I looked over to her after a minute, I saw her looking back and saw her savouring the same quietness as I did.

"I wondered. What did you talk to Astoria about last night?"

She grinned. "Your needs."

I was confused. "My needs?"

Hermione chuckled. "Yes. We are both aware that you have needs." I had plenty needs. Which one … Oh! There was a glint in her eyes. That need. But she didn't actually want passion, did she? I tried to squelch the upcoming hope but it was difficult. She turned to me and swinging one of her long legs over mine, she sat herself over my lap. She put her hands on my chest and moved them down to my crotch. Bending forward, her hands warming a certain area, she spoke against my lips: "Big needs. Enormous needs. Insatiable needs."

Oh, goody, perhaps shagging was still on the menu. Perhaps she needed to do the shagging with control. If her bossiness had been any indication, she liked to have the upper hand. I could let her take the lead, even though it was very contrary to my usual modus. There might be undiscovered pleasures hidden yet. Granger usually knew what she was doing, when she put her mind to it.

Understanding, I grinned back. "Well, I also have a big ego."

She snorted. "Yes. You do." And then she kissed me in long languid pulls, leaving her warm hands on my crotch at the same time. I was in heaven. Just because we didn't rip our clothes off and didn't come once already in her foyer, didn't mean it couldn't be good. We had just started exploring our bodies a few days ago. We had a long way to go, even though I felt as if I knew her already. I knew how she reacted explosive to certain touches in certain places, passionately. More details I would learn in time. There was no urgency. Magical push or not.

Our lips moved slowly against each other. And against other body parts. Smoothly, like water trickling over rock, in slow passing of time. Calm. It was calm. Like the depth of the night. Water. It felt like under water. All noise gone, but the gurgling of my own blood and my kissing movements in my ears. Completely undisturbed. No excessive expectations. Heavenly peaceful.

There was no urge, but our clothes went none the less. We just couldn't resist touching our naked skin. I didn't need to unite with her because I wanted her to have control over this one. And I did have self-control. I was good at controlling myself. I was going with what she wanted and I could have kissed her smoothly and quietly for quite some time satisfied, if that was what she wanted. But I wanted to sink my prick into her. Very much. Waiting for her signal, I could wait some more. But not much more.

With a wave of her wand she turned her sofa into a wide bed in the middle of her living room and I lay back, pulling her over me. It was dark. We hadn't lit any light and since it was after dark, only the street lights from outside lit a bit of the room. It shone on her as she was bent over me and it looked otherworldly.

Otherworldly was also the feeling of her stroking. Like silk over my skin, gentle, soothing. There was a reason why I always slept in silk. It was a freaking arousing feeling. I turned this way and that for her to reach every point she wanted to touch. I wanted her to do it at her own leisure. I thought perhaps she would feel more in tune with it, when she felt in control. And it felt so bloody good to go slow.

Soothing touch had been a short commodity in my life so far. Well, you know my parents. And usually, women had just wanted to be taken and ravished by my bad boy persona and hadn't really gone for the slow built of loving caresses. I didn't have much experience in that area. The contrast of Granger, who used to be such an obnoxious know-it-all and who was so powerful that she could force me to my knees, magically, touching so gentle was mind-blowing. But not unnatural. Despite all her immense power, I figured, she was still a virgin at heart. She had yet to discover the power she held over me. The power each woman holds over her man, when she sighs blissfully and his heart soars recognizing that he is the one who gives her such pleasure. Most women don't realize that they hold their man's self-esteem in their delicate hands with the way they receive him. And Granger was still blissfully ignorant of that fact.

I supposed, I had guessed right. Granger was more of a making-love-kind of girl. It was a pity, because the explosive shagging we had done was more along my line. And even though it wasn't surprising, because Granger was such a virgin in her heart, she had done exceptionally well the last few days, and I'd had high hopes that we could have continued this way. She was, after all, a very passionate person. Everything she did, she did with her full conviction. And it had been breath taking to see that she even put it in her, let's say, physical encounters. Only people who really feel for what they do put their full effort behind everything. Even her schoolwork she did full force, and when she argued she did it vehemently.

I wondered if men had appreciated it previously, her passion on one hand, but her inexperience on the other. I figured not. She needed a man who knew what he was doing. That's why she ended up with me. In my mind, I rubbed my hands. Morons. Their loss, my win. Well, if she needed this quiet love making right now to exert her own control, I would go along with it. For now. It didn't feel bad at all. But perhaps I could make her discover her passion for being shagged again later.

I had just leaned into the hypnotic feel of Granger's stroking and relaxed backward when I felt her stiffen and groan. I almost groaned in reply. What the fuck had I done?

She shivered and burrowed her head against my chest. Now, that would have been a nice sensation under the circumstances, had I not caught her glance before: had she not looked like her beloved Potter was slaughtered and she was there to witness. And then she yelped and jumped off me and covered herself as if Voldemort's henchman were about to steal her virginity. I winced internally. I shouldn't make fun of it. It wasn't funny. But I couldn't help my groan.

"Granger, what …," I got out before I heard her sobbing. Oh, Merlin, she was crying. What the fuck happened?

"Hermione, what the .." I stopped myself just in time. "What happened?" I rolled over to pull her to me but she started slapping against my arms. Bloody hell. Had she lost her mind? When one of her slaps landed on my face (again; I hadn't forgotten third year), I pulled back and complained yelling. Again. What was it with this woman that had me yelling? I never yelled. But something about her was so aggravating that I couldn't help it.

She winced at my yelling and I lowered it to a snarl. "You can't turn me on and then turn me away, Granger," I snarled. "That's cruel." Or something in that order. And then something about her being afraid of sex. Which wasn't unlikely. She wasn't called the iron-belted Gryffindor Princess for nothing. It wasn't fair, though. Between Potter and Weasley, I probably would have abstained as well, and that's saying something. But I had resigned myself to the fact, that she needed more time and control and that we couldn't continue as delightfully as we had started out, and then she initiated loving touch, and now she left me hang to dry. Do you have any idea how frustrating an unreleased prick is, in particular with the temptation of her delightful reaction to me in front of it?

I snarled and hissed a few more unfair remarks in my frustration, about seeking release with other women. But it was a shot in the dark. I could have never done it. There was nothing in it for me anymore. It was like winning a championship and then saying, "yeah, sure, I'll only take the second prize." Didn't work. Just releasing with any woman had lost its thrill in light of the bliss I had with Hermione.

For a moment, she looked her normal fierce self, when she reacted to my insinuation, but then she sank back into her unusual freight. I told her that if she needed to punish me for the way I had treated her while at Hogwarts, she should tell me, and we would work it out. But I needed to know what she wanted and needed and how long I had to wait, for fuck's sake, because I needed her to have me again. At one point. I needed the wholesomeness I only experienced with her.

Being in love was never an emotion I had paid much attention to. It was just one of these things that hormonal teenagers did, and it was absolutely beneath me to be a stuttering boy salivating after girls. When it would have been important in an adolescent's life, I barely had a mind for superficial dalliances, not to mention emotions I had killed a long time ago anyway. I had been busy portraying blood supremacy and trying to find a way to let Death Eaters into the school, scared out of my mind if I would ever see my parents, especially my mother alive again. And how much longer I had to live. And it had always been clear that I had to marry another pureblood girl to create offspring, so, I had never planned to fall in love.

And pursuing something that I wanted was new for me as well. But I had Hermione under my skin and I cared. I couldn't cut Granger out like a piece of flesh. She was in me, through me, a part of me. I felt it in my heart that she completed me. I worked hard and did my utmost to make her comfortable with me, because I knew, if she ever left, I would literally be only half. And I was fairly certain that half a person cannot live. I just needed to know when I could expect her back again, my fierce lioness. I could wait. But I needed to know until when.

I wanted her wanting me. It was the best feeling ever when I entered her and she was ready, because she wanted it. I knew I belonged there. She was made for me, as strange as that sounds in light of my previous beliefs. But when truth stares you in the eyes, it's hard not to see it. And I intended to get her back.

We would still fight. She still had infuriating habits that drove me nuts at times, her bookishness, her show-off tendencies, her righteousness, her moral compass that was so different from a Slytherin's moral compass, and her dorky friends.

But there were other parts in her that I knew I couldn't live without: her warmth, her acceptance, her magical power, her cleverness, her honesty, her response to me, the fact that her moral compass would straighten me out. She was cunning enough herself but morally more in line with the majority of society; I knew: if I ran something by her and I could get her approval, it would be okay.

Looking at her now, I could tell she was afraid. She looked as if threatened with an Avada Kedavra. She was vulnerable in her pain of losses that she had fought to forget for months, and faced with me, it came lose, and she was afraid. And it was my fault. I had stood on the wrong side of the war and I had done my best, or worst, to show her that she was on the other side. She couldn't be really afraid of me, but she was likely afraid of the picture I portrayed.

From what I had seen in Potter's kitchen, the horrors of the war had finally caught up with her. Being Granger and focused to the extreme, she must have barged through the terror, focused on her own task and Potter's task, and had blanked out everything that would distract her and that she didn't want to see. And now, being reminded of it, she was close to a nervous collapse. She fought me, fought what I stood for, although, all I wanted to do was calm her. Would I ever be able to convince her that I wanted to put this part of my life as far behind me as humanly possible? I would have gone the same route if it hadn't been for her.

I'd lost my countenance there, in Potter's kitchen. I'd never been so shocked in my life to see Granger so low. And I'd seen a few things. To see that even she had a breaking point was unconceivable. I had always banked on her strength and persistence. She was the rock everybody supported themselves on, besides Dumbledore. Even though she would drive me around the bend at times with her need to show off, she was a constant presence in all our lives. We had all changed in the war, well, the war had changed us, but we had required her to remain the same: the same steadfastness, the same support, the same fierce justice, the same walking library, the same mastery of everything magic that was inherent to her. How inconsiderate.

In fact, it occurred to me, it wasn't us purebloods who were the face of magic, our centuries long tedious trials to preserve magic through interbreeding, resulting in loveless marriages on end and desperate, frustrated, snarling human beings who were anything but satisfied with it and their lives.

She was the actual face of magic. Hermione Granger was the epitome of the power that came from nowhere because you deserved it; to pass it on to your children, independent of your partner's ancestry; for the thirst to learn whatever possible about it and not to rest on the laurels of simply having it. She stood for the fierceness to defend its use to everybody and the justice for everybody who wielded it to use it appropriately. She was it. And I was just the poor sod (not literal) with the old encrusted ideas, which she had to overcome. If she could change my mind, would we be able to change the public's mind?

Understanding my fellow beings was never one of my problems. With one glance, I usually knew what their problem was. But I always lacked the sympathy to accommodate them. Nobody had any sympathy for my problems, not that I would have asked anybody. But why should I help them with theirs?

But for Granger, I had to. I had to accommodate her, so she would come around. I needed her to come around. And raise her anger, maybe. She wasn't angry with me. I almost wished she was. Because when she was angry, she had strength in abundance. She discovered her passion, when she was angry, and it pushed her through, then. I loved her anger. She was beautiful when she was angry. She cared when she was angry. It was close to her fierceness. The same fierceness she had shown the night before the Death Eaters invaded Hogwarts. When I had seen it and been awed and had wished that somebody someday would be as fierce for me (except my mother). I had tasted her heat in the air that night. I grinned slyly on the inside. Perhaps it would help if I did something about her anger. So, to rile her up, then.

Her heat. What had Dumbledore said: the dark magic's focus was a metaphor for my focus? For my cold cutting razor sharp attention to detail? And her all-encompassing warmth and acceptance filled every crook and nanny in me that I lacked. But it wasn't only a metaphor. Her warmth filled my coldness. She completed me. She completed my humanity starved soul to a degree that I felt incomplete without her. Only half.

She was my other half. My equal. Granger had said that in the dream the night before Dumbledore's death. And I had woken up the morning and found it very upsetting. And now I found she had been right.

She was my equal in being entirely different. All these dimensions of difference to make our mutual magic stronger were true. She was that different and that made it so perfect. She equalized everything I was lacking. And I did the same for her. Together, we were strong. We fit. We were whole.

One whole.

A union. Two opposite people coming together to make one whole. And I wanted her to know it, since she was still afraid that I would turn back one day. Not bloody likely. I reminded her that I had helped her when she was tortured (nothing I'm proud of, really; too little, too late) but I could see it in her eyes that it didn't go through.

Following her upset gaze down to my arms, I realized what had spooked her. My Mark. The reminder, although now magically impotent, of the horrors of the war. I reminded her of the war. And again, I couldn't blame her. Where she stood for everything that was right with magic, I was the image of everything that was wrong with this war. But I needed her to snap out of it and accept me as just a man.

I felt the fury building in me. Wasn't it enough that this idiot with his ludicrous ideas had destroyed my father, my family and everything we lived for? Wasn't it enough that I had to suffer my entire childhood under the influence of his craziness and that I had to work fucking hard for the rest of my life to make up for it? He wanted to posthumously take the woman I loved and my future as well?

No. He would not. Before I let that happen, I would rather destroy every reminder of it. She needed proof that I was done with Voldemort's craziness? Perhaps without the mark like a beacon on my arm, she would be able to see me as a man who was in love with her, and not as Draco Malfoy, pureblood supremacist?

Taking a deep breath, I decided: "I'm going to cut it out." We could heal the wound in a flash. We were magical, the two of us. Incredibly magical. Closing wounds was a piece of cake. Heck, we could even do it by just thinking about it, powerful as we were. I would have a scar the size of the mark on my arm, but I had that anyway, didn't I? It would bleed, but honestly … ever taken a Cruciatus?

I was certain that some kind of sacrifice was in order. Perhaps a little blood shedding was enough to make her see reason.

I reminded her of the responsibility she had, now that I was in love with her. She couldn't just up and leave. She would be solely responsible for me causing the next massacre in the street out of sheer desperation over the crippling pain it would cause. I couldn't live without her soothing presence. Yes, we still bickered and fought, but overall this feeling of wholeness when I was with her was rather soothing.

And while I reminded her of her responsibility, I realized that the mark was my responsibility. I had received it under pressure, but I carried it; and if I wanted it gone, I had to take care of it. If it was required for Granger to stay with me, I would do it.

She was shocked, not surprisingly. It sounded likely very heroic, my proposition to cut the mark out, but it was anything but. My own selfishness motivated me. I wanted Granger for me, and I would do what it took to have her. And for her to have me.

"I'm cutting it out," I confirmed. "In fact, I want you to do it."

Now, I didn't say that because I didn't want to do the work. It would have been as easy as capturing a doxy with a freezing spell. But I wanted her to do the honours. I thought, when she could actively remove this smudge from me, she would be able to see me as a person and not the Death Eater who carried the mark. And even though it would be painful, I supposed it could remind her to what length I had gone and likely would go again for her. A bit melodramatic, perhaps, but weren't the heroics of the Gryffindors along those lines? She would understand it, at least, if I spoke her language of bold moves.

But of course, she couldn't simply comply, oh no. We don't just agree, my little lion and I. We have to fight it out, first. Life would be so much easier, if I had just chosen a submissive wife who just nodded her head. But so boring.

She had to make it difficult and refuse. "I'll hurt you," she said. "You'll bleed. You'll have a scar." The level look I sent her finally shut her up. How were all these pain and blood and scars different from what I already had? In fact, in terms of the amount of pain taken, I could easily take hers on top of mine.

I was a bit surprised when she reacted to my command, however. She lost her nerve before using the severing spell, but at least she followed my order of taking and pointing her wand. What was that about? Since when did she comply with anything that came from me?

When she groaned and bit her lip through, a small trickle of blood running down her chin, it became clear that she wouldn't be able to do it without motivation. Lucky for her, I knew just how to motivate her.

"Where's your Gryffindor courage, princess?" I jeered. Oh, she was going to be furious. I loved her fury. She was so alive when she was furious. Her magic beat against mine like a pulsing beat when she was furious. For somebody who had spent his childhood trying to beat down his emotions as much as possible, her vivid fury was a heaven sent. Perhaps it would lead to other things when she was truly pissed off? I suppressed a shudder, thinking about it.

"Afraid you splatter some blood on your skin?" I taunted her. The blood issue would surely piss her off. Perhaps she would feel just as tainted by my blood as I would have been by her blood until a few years ago. What rubbish it had been.

When that still didn't take, I teased her fear of failure. "Is your courage failing you, princess?" She looked like a chicken with the fox in the coop: unable to move until he snapped her neck. She was torn, though, I saw. On one hand, she wanted the mark gone, on the other hand, she didn't want to hurt me. It wasn't in her nature. She would rather suffer herself than put it on somebody else. That was also the reason she had offered to take my pain that night in the classroom. She was compassionate, absolutely, and she had wanted to help me. But she was also incapable to take something for her own good. Not before she hadn't satisfied everybody else.

But I wanted her to. I wanted her to take me, not because she needed to help me, although that would be a nice side effect, but also because it would be good for her. Ginny and Potter had already understood that, and tried to drum it into her. Although I wasn't the ideal man for her in terms of my past; I believed, like Potter and Ginny, that it would be good for her to just take something she enjoyed, and screw the consequences.

Still no reaction to failing. Well, I had a few more choices.

"Why, one would think you liked this mark on my arm. Flirting with danger, princess? Having a little fuck with a Death Eater? He's better than the weasel, isn't he?" I challenged her on the outrageous idea that she would sink so low as to seek carnal pleasures with the enemy. I knew it was rubbish. But if she had ever been tempted to flee the scene she would react to this. I knew what triggered people. I always had. My sole key to survival.

But only the reminder of her torture got her. She was a Gryffindor through and through. Her principles straight and narrow and rigid and indestructible, she reacted to the insinuation that she didn't wholeheartedly care for other beings, and could torture even one who had done her harm. Oh, Merlin, I loved this goodness in her. I would drink it up until my soul was filled and I felt whole again. If I asked her nicely, I was sure she would feed it to me. Her goodness, for Merlin's sake, not her soul. What do you take me for?

But she still wouldn't cut me. In her moment of rage, I took the choice from her and said the spell myself. It stung, and I felt my eyes twitch. It didn't really matter, I didn't have to hide my pain expression anymore. But it was so ingrained to not show it, it was hard to turn off. And I didn't want to scare Hermione. I was sure she would refuse, when I was hurting too much. Already she struggled. I had to hurry.

I cut the next line but I couldn't get any further. Truly upset now, Hermione pulled her hand away, and with the changed angle I didn't want to cut anything precious. We both watched how the blood ran over my mark and cut off the snakes head, figuratively. If only it was that easy. I was afraid it would always remain with me, and I would have to fight for the rest of my entire life against it. Now, that was going to be painful. And tiring.

"I don't want to hurt you," she screamed at me. Yeah, alright, so you won't. I couldn't win. I had tried being nice, and nobody wanted that either.

"That's what Voldemort did and we wanted to stop it. I don't want more pain. There's been plenty. I want it to stop." Like a naked fury she kneeled in front of me. Her hair frizzed as usual, her cheeks reddened, her eyes glittering, the sheet she had used to cover herself had fallen. The very vision of an avenging angel she yelled, bare and yet invincible. Oh, gawds, she was stunning. Her slim limbs moving with vehemence, scowling and shaking at the reminder of all pains and hurts Voldemort's time had caused, physical, emotional, grieve and loss, there was the anger I loved so much. And with it her strength to take on the world. It twitched somewhere in my lower stomach.

There was my courageous lion. Thank Merlin. She had found it in herself to remember what this was all about. I couldn't help my smirk.

"Welcome home, fierceness," I greeted her with a peck on her shiny lips. Hmm, I loved those lips. But there was blood on it. Without thinking I dipped in it. And then I had her blood on my fingers. It was just blood. Looked just like mine, running down my arm. I should have known from the start that it was complete bullshit, what they were feeding us. I just couldn't believe that they had believed it themselves. I mean, how stupid can you be? And adults, no less.

"You bit yourself," I said, and then, not knowing what to do with it, I sucked the finger clean in my mouth. Just blood. I had tasted plenty blood while biting my own tongue or nursing my wounds after punishments or "exercises". It tasted the same, hers and mine. Perhaps hers tasted a bit more female or I had her rose smell in my nose, who knows. But other than that they were exactly the same. Figures.

She had gone still again. "How does it taste?" she whispered with wide eyes, as if she couldn't believe I tasted her blood. I shrugged and told her the same I had just realized, and not for the first time. And I offered her mine in comparison. She took it.

Hm, when she sucked on my fingers, licking my blood off, I felt it stirring in my loins. Not because ingesting blood gave me a twisted kick, but because her tongue tickling over my fingers stirred well-known reactions to her presence. I bent to her.

"Do you believe me now?" I asked close to her lips, where my finger was still inserted. I pulled it out and watched how her lips closed behind it. Seeing them move, I wanted to taste them again, with or without blood, I didn't care. Feeling her lips respond to mine was always a sure fire way to bring me up. And judged from the way she was glancing down to my lips and further down my body, she wasn't opposed.

Her eyes. Warm brown eyes. They were warm as fertile soil, her rose scent mixing in my mind with her warm eyes to the smell of summer growth and harvest. Malfoy Manor was in the country side, so every August I had watched the farmers from the hidden property bring in their early crop, watched the bare earthen fields after the harvest, and smelled the scent of growth, of home and hearth, of future survival, mixed with the scent of the late roses. Her scent. Growth.

"Believe what?" she asked, just to be contrary. But her breath became a bit shallower. Oh, please, could we jump the banter and get to the good part?

I said something. Something profound. But I only saw her swallow. Why, oh why didn't she jump me again? She wanted to. I saw it. Did she want me to take the first step? But she wanted the control, so she would have to come to me, didn't she? Granger, make up your mind and take your man. Do it now.

"Did it change you?" she asked. Her breath blew in my face and I wanted to swallow it at the source.

At least, she focused entirely on me. This was just she and I. Our union. I wanted her to belong to me. If only she understood, above and beyond her usual caring.

I answered in the negative, as expected. She knew the answer before she had asked the question. She was killing time. But what was she waiting for?

I called her out on her untypical lack of courage again but she continued to look at me like a rabbit who finds the snake perched right at his exit. Caught. And waiting.

I was confused. For once, my skill of seeing people for what they are, failed me. Why didn't she move? I could almost feel her lips against mine. I definitely felt her breath smooth over my lips. Kiss, Granger. Kiss.

But she deflated and pulled back. I couldn't believe it. What the fuck was this about? What is it with woman that they can't say clearly what they want? And she actually was going to leave the bed. Oh, no, lioness, stop right there.

"Where do you think you are going?" I asked her, perhaps a bit more sharply than I had intended. Old habits.

She shrugged as if nothing had happened just a few minutes ago. Like we hadn't exchanged blood and tried to cut out my Death Eater mark. Wait, chocolate and ice cream?

I answered something snarky but in my head the thoughts churned. Women eat chocolate or ice cream when they are disappointed and can't get what they want. Soul food, they call it. Hermione just said, soul soothers. Now, why would she need soul food when she was a breath away from taking the world's best shag?

She became stroppy when I challenged her on her lack of gratitude for my sacrifice. In my mind, I had to relive the moment I had to take the mark, the threat to my mother's life, the absolute helplessness of walking into hell and having no way to turn around, and making it appear as if you couldn't wait to be branded for life at the same time, and that made me angry. Here I thought, she was back to normal and we were finally having a good shag but again …

One word led to another. I had enough of her attitude. Did she think she was the only person suffering? She knew she wasn't. So, what the fuck was wrong? Fury swirling in me heated my rump. I felt it seeping out of my body, saturate the air around us. My thoughts slashing my mind, I could barely restrain my yelling; I thought of Hermione embracing me and feeling complete. I thought of it being within reach and always escaping me on a whim. How many more sacrifices would I have to do before I was accepted for good? Why wouldn't they let me make up for my mistakes? I didn't need forgiveness, just a chance to show that I was serious. My fury shook me like an impending earthquake, and I had it.

I was done waiting for her. I was done watching her be jolly with her friends and give me the cold treatment. She had given me her hand when I was in need and now I was going to take the whole arm and the woman attached to it. Because she was mine. If I didn't put my foot down now, this would never stop. I didn't care if she was undecided about what the future was going to bring. We couldn't know. We would have to get there and see. I knew she wanted me, her body told me in multiple ways; I was taking what was rightfully mine. We were adjuncted, the magic had connected us, she was for me, and her virginal personality, which was holding her back, could go and fuck itself, literally. I was taking this divine body of hers and shag her senseless. Right now.

I moved in. She leaned back. I pushed further. She leaned further. She asked what I was doing and I told her that I was claiming what was mine and that I was done bending myself backward, just because I had been given a dirty tattoo, because my parents believed in this shite. I was done punishing myself and let myself be punished for not being a likable boy, when we were at school. Yes, I had done things I wasn't proud off. Would you let me grow out of it already? It's done, it's in the past, I would like to move on, thank you very much. There's plenty of work to be done in the near future, to make up for my errors. Mind if I get started?

When she toppled backwards, I moved over her. Oh, Salazar, I wanted her. I needed her, because she was she. This woman, with all her bookishness and know-it-all tendencies and bossiness and her mop of hair, I wanted. This woman with the gleaming eyes and the warmth and the grace and the magical power and her passionate fury and her love of life, her love, I wanted. I clenched my jaw, trying to control my emotions for this particular slim woman, but I couldn't stop my thick length hardening in record time. I hardly felt any physical pain from the cut, even when I supported myself on that arm.

This went further than lust and want. I wanted to be in her and connect with her and be with her. I had tried to be for her what she needed. Because I wanted her to want me. But I was done distorting myself. Either she would take me as I was, dirty past and all, or …

I couldn't finish that thought when her breath hitched. I was bent over her, fuming, her back flat on the bed surface and she … swallowed. But not in fear. Her eyes darkened and her lips fell open. She stretched her legs out beneath me and wiggled her thighs. I looked down where her thighs lay still again, across her heaving stomach and breasts, to her moving throat, to her face where her cheeks were slowly blushing. And my loins gave an impatient twitch.

She liked it.

It ran cold down my spine when I got it. She didn't take me because she didn't want to take. She wanted to be taken. Women. Merlin's toerag.

She had been confused by the way we shagged. Hermione had questioned if we would continue like this. Because she liked it. She wanted it. She liked our tight fit and explosive union and my experience, which I used to bring her up. She was confused because she liked it despite the amount of women I had been with and that I used to be the enemy, and it so didn't fit her squeaky clean image and her virginal personality. But she liked what we did and she was just insecure to claim it. I said as much.

I said something about shagging her against the wall and disappointment but it was just a tease. I was anything but. The mental equivalent of my libido did a wild dance in flashing disco light, something a Malfoy would never lower himself to come even close to. Entirely unleashed. Blood pumped into my member accordingly, bringing it up to full height. She wanted me the way I was, the way she knew me, sharp tongue, underhanded depreciation, and snarky wit. She wanted me because of the way she knew me and despite of who and what I was.

She squeaked in response that she didn't want the bad boy, but I didn't want a lecture. If she wanted me, then she would take me and on a sudden impulse, I just went in.

She bent backwards at the intrusion, exposing her throat. I couldn't see her eyes anymore and panting, I just prayed to an unknown deity that I hadn't hurt her. Because it felt so bloody good, burying my thickness deep within her, I couldn't have undone it. All I could do was pausing my movements, and wait for her to tell me how to go on. I felt my face contort, revelling in her warmth and silky softness, but I exhaled. I was right – there. I knew immediately that I was where I was supposed to be. This was it. Sheathed in her, I was home. Whatever weird energy talk was going on around here, this – was – it. There would be nothing better. It was indescribable. The way Hermione Granger captured me was the ultimate it.

And when she came back down and I could actually see her eyes again, I saw that she felt the same way. Oh, mother of Merlin.

Aunt Bella would turn in her grave if she knew I was pleasuring a mudblood to her and to my heart's desire, and my father would try to disown me. I couldn't have cared less. I was very much aware that Hermione gifted me with something precious in our being together.

Her overpowering my magic, and therefore me, at Blaise's place had only confirmed that. Even though she had bested, and as good as embarrassed me in front of my friends, I had never felt as together as when she had brought me to my knees. This hadn't been about domination, and I liked the security it offered.

And again, it wasn't as if I needed her protection, but the fact that somebody put up the effort to stand up for me and to me, opened my heart. When Dumbledore and Snape had done it, I wasn't quite sure of their motives, and that had only confused me. Slytherins are not only cunning but rather self-preserving. And to give somebody ammunition by admitting that you needed protection was an absolute no-no in the Slytherin book.

But to accept her caring when she left me no choice was another thing. I just hoped my friends would see it the same way. If not, then we would have to part ways. I wasn't going to give this up in a million years. Between cold-hearted Slytherin alliances and her warmth, I knew where my interests lay. Sure, alliances were important but my self-preservation required that I stayed whole in the first place.

Over the last few days here, in her apartment, it had matured, this thought. We had had plenty of sex, but that wasn't all. Where I normally tired of every witch or woman I was with after a while, I knew with Hermione it would always be fulfilling. Satisfying, hell yes, sexually pleasing, absolutely, but so much more. This wasn't only about shagging. This was about connecting and balance and exchange and healing and maturing and completion and growing.

And I understood why she wanted to be taken. With all her bossiness, it felt good for her to not always have to be in control, the weight of responsibility taken off her shoulders, for somebody else to make the decision and not leaving her time to think. And it had nothing to do with my bad boy persona, I knew that as well. Hermione wanted somebody who could stand up to her and overtake her, to tell her to shut up when she got lost in her thoughts, at least every once in a while, and apparently, the weasel had not been up to the task. Oh, I was going to love rubbing that in, the next time we met.

So, if she bested me in magic and I bested her in bed, could we make that work? I was almost certain we would, clever as we were.

And then she actually encouraged me to move. Between kisses that were more like bites, she demanded it. Now, I was Draco Malfoy, and I usually didn't let women tell me what to do. But Hermione could, especially if she kissed me like this.

She moved against me that I could have just held still and we would have come in no time. Heavenly. I almost laughed at her impatience. A snicker might have escaped me. This was after all the same woman who had freaked an hour ago. Only now she was unleashed. I never wanted to see her scorned; it would be a force to behold.

When I had done one exploratory thrust against her whipping hips I had to stop again. It was just too overwhelming. Not only the friction, of course, it was fantastic. But besides the strings tugging on my heart, something was pulling in my loin as well. Pulling to her. It was no surprise that something pulled me to her; it was just so fucking intense. As if something was pulling me inside out but without the pain. And whatever it was, I felt it lingering between us. She wouldn't pull from her side. Fuck, Granger, fucking take what's yours anyway.

The next thrusts were easier and soon, I was simply diving into her and I didn't want to surface again. I almost sang in my mind (and believe me, you don't want to hear that). She liked it the way we did it. I wouldn't have to change at all. Finally something that went right.

I could continue shagging her to my heart's desire. In my mind, I imagined every room in Malfoy Manor that we would christen, the library, between the bookshelves, next to a burning pile of books against muggleborns, between my mother's plants in the greenhouse, the billiard table, the drawing room floor to defile Bellatrix' memory, my father's bedroom, my father's desk, that gave me a particular kick, my naked arse facing his pompous armchair where he resided when he was holding court in his den. Or Granger's naked arse, I would see. Oh, I couldn't wait to get started.

Oh, yes, I moaned. I couldn't pay much attention to actually pleasuring Hermione, as my body was driving into hers, pulling in and out, jerking her body, making her breasts bounce, scouring every inch with in her, firmly embedded in her. There was no room for thinking or consideration. But she didn't seem to require it. If her moans and squirming were any indication, she enjoyed this plain and simple coupling just as much as I did. I felt driven, once again, to dive as deeply into her as humanly possible. Pushed. Pulled.

Judged by her blooming cheeks and her shallow breathing through her open mouth, my thrusts were doing the trick. And I was in heaven once I found my rhythm, surge after quick surge. She enclosed me the way she used to, between her arms and legs, her hands deep in my hair. She wasn't the first to do that, but the most honest one. It was her only way of claiming me, because so far she hadn't even been sure whether she wanted me for the long haul. It hurt a little to be discounted by the one woman I actually wanted to be claimed by, the one I was actually drawn to, and not just for a fuck. But yes, for that as well.

Holy fuck, this was so much more than I ever imagined it could be. I used to be just the rake, who took women for a quick interlude or two, and moved on. I supposed this was karma's way of showing me the finger, showing me what I'd done, how these women had felt.

Being with Granger opened new dimensions of depth that I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. (And that was a good thing, because it would have been very embarrassing, if Voldemort had dug that out of my brain.) I felt alive and full of need, raw, hungry need, ardently plunging into her, tearing into her, losing myself in her as the age-old connection was met again and again. I was hers in these moments. In these moments, she was all I needed and wanted in this world. Hearing the slapping against her body, the sucking sounds that followed every immersion, I took what she freely offered, claiming her and wanting to be claimed, wanting to be needed, the way I needed her.

I fell into her mouth, trying to possess it with my tongue in a double penetration as she moaned into me, trying to find as many points of contact as possible, because I wanted to feel the connection we had, before we were finished and reality caught up with us again. The reality that still scared her.

I couldn't fathom that she didn't see the connection. As if there was a magical string from me to her, tying us together, I saw it. It felt so good, being connected to another human being. And then such a compassionate one.

Compassion. Passion. It looked almost like anger. Like heat. Energy given and exchanged, focused on the partner. Haa, Merlin, to have her explode around me. Changing my angle, I pulled her legs up and made sure I was scraping over her front wall frequently. And it seemed to pay off. She was squirming and writhing beneath me, and I knew she was coming close.

Distracting myself, I started babbling testimonies of my excitement, because I knew if I didn't, I would come soon. Very soon. Scorching kisses, tantalizing tongue play, I was doused in the heat coming from her, enveloping me, caressing, warming me. She shuddered.

"Let it come, Hermione", I told her. I felt her tensing around me, milking me, tensing back, and yet, she wouldn't blow. She shivered and shuddered and her legs were shaking but she didn't come. This was going to be huge for her. She sensed it and she was a little afraid.

She moaned my name, searching security in me. "Draco." And again. "Draco."

"I'm here, babe," I calmed her, hard-pressed, clinging to the last scrap of sanity in my mushy mind. "I'll hold you." And I would. I would hold her together. I wouldn't let her break apart. I needed her. I wanted her. She had to stay here with me. "Just let go."

I was so close myself. "I can't," she said.

"Yes, you can," I replied. You have to, I'm so close. Please, Granger. Hermione, please. I was losing control, pounding into her, unable to stop. I felt my balls pull in, announcing my impending release. I was too far gone to wait for her. It shot through my mind what I had done the last time she was hung up over coming. I had bitten her. And it had let to a night of delight. Oh, yes.

I bit her throat, gently. And it worked. With a gasp, I felt her pulling me in like a lifeline. She clung to me, pulling my hair, pulling her inner muscles, oh, Merlin, heaven, tightening her legs, sucking on my lips hungrily, pulling me in, on my tongue, deeper, deeper, pull, please, pull me in, pull me inside out, take me apart, shake off this cold and dark and anger and fury and pain and past and frustration and disappointment and deprivation and numbness and hopelessness, and put the pieces back together. Take me in. Please.

She did come first and she strangled my prick. She did pull me inside out. She pulled everything out of me I had asked for. I'd never been so deep in any witch before. Captured. Owned. I heard and felt her scream directly in my face, my lips hovering over hers when she came, but I was helpless to respond any other way than I did. I came as well, firing several powerful jets into her, my loins pulsing tightly into her, whimpering, feeling our mixed juices wash over me at each delicious pulse.

And when it shot out of me, the frontal part of my brain entirely wrapped around this incredible perfection of coming deep in this witch I was going to need like the air I breathed, it occurred to me, somewhere in the back of my brain, that one day I wanted my shoot to root in her. I wanted to sow my seed into her fertile soil and watch it grow. I wanted to take hold in her and create life. I wanted her to take my spunk and grow a child. I wanted to be there to watch it every step of the way, share every experience while it grew in her and after, when it was born.

Arching backward, milking every drop of come from me, pushing still deeper into her, while I imagined Granger growing big, breathtakingly beautiful, glowing from the inside with the hormones while she carried my child, it clicked in my brain and something appeared in my mind. I saw a vision of an entire apparatus of magical spells and their composition of energy: a basic part that they all have in common, without exception, and a variable part that made them different from each other. And within that variable part I saw an energetic structure that made each spell what it is, a nucleus, glowing, empowering. I saw our compow gliding around this glowing nucleus, illuminating it, transforming itself to a counterpart of it, like a matching puzzle piece, and I just knew: this was the part we would have to change. This exact part we would have to change to create the counters. The realization exploded in my brain like a supernova (yeah, we do astronomy, remember?), filling my vision with bright white light. I panted against the closeness of my throat.

Union. Create. Not create a union, but have a union that creates! This was the last piece. I wanted to create with her. I wanted to create life and hope and goodness. And peace on earth, bloody hell. With her. Hermione. I wanted … with her. Breathless from the epiphany, I gargled on my own spit.

"Draco, Draco, what's wrong?" I heard Granger's voice.

"I see it," I wheezed. I couldn't open my eyes. If it was this bright in here, how much brighter would it be out there? "I see the structure for the counters."

Granger pulled me down to her and cuddled me into her neck. I loved her neck. It was soft and warm and it smelled of her. She anchored me there. And so I floated in free space, my head filled with enormous knowledge, full to bursting, forcing its way into my grey matter, attached to her, holding me. I would show her eventually what flooded my brain, but right now, I was the one detached from reality, connected to earth only through her arms, her smell, and ... other parts of her body.

It felt like flying, gliding on a broom through the clouds, no, more like floating in a vacuum, in outer space, with no disturbances, flying free.

I was free. Attached to Hermione Granger, and I wouldn't want it any other way, but free of every other bond or obligation. I was Draco Malfoy and was able to have everything money can buy and magic can conjure. And I was free to choose and to do what I wanted.

Free to love who I wanted, how much, how long, how deep I wanted.

Free.

.

_A/N: Take a deep breath_.

.

**Hermione's POV:**

I understood. Wrapped in Draco Malfoy's arm, feeling him drive into me for all he was worth, I screamed when the knot in my belly exploded, freeing an ancient power of animalistic quality, as old as the world. Enraptured by the scorching heat in my pelvis and stomach and chest, and with the clarity of mind that comes with realizations, my brain clicking through a raster of epiphanies, I understood why it had to be him.

In a flash second during my climax, I had a vision fill my mind and with the knowledge from it, it all made sense. I had a vision of the same three pillars that I had already seen before, pressed against a French door at Malfoy Manor. I had thought of them as elements supporting love: trust, lust and intimacy. And it hadn't been wrong at the time.

But they were more. They were pillars of pure energy: mine, Draco's and the compow's. And they were intermingling because that's what energy does, trying to find balance. I saw colours on each pillar for Draco and me, red and orange and yellow and green and blue and purple, the same purple as the compow's pillar, bathed in the respective colour of our magic, blue for him, red for me. And coloured lights, strands of energy, were moving back and forth between the two multi-coloured pillars and the purple one. I saw red and green going from one pillar to the other and orange and yellow coming back. I saw blue and purple swinging back and forth between the two and the purple pillar. Balance. They were balancing each other out. Where one was dimmer, the other was brighter and they exchanged. And together, they held the purple pillar up, feeding it.

And Harry had brought it up.

We were selected for our perfect balance, the way Andromeda and Dumbledore had pointed out. And we weren't forced or determined by the magic, as Dumbledore had likewise said. We were the magic. The magic was in us, the magic came through us, we formed and created it. And if I wanted to fall in love with him was totally up to me, and was totally irrelevant. Because the magic would be there either way. Because of who we were, Draco and I.

Oh, this was old. This was older than old. Older than wizards. Older even than mankind. Ancient as the rock or sky grey of his eyes and as the fertile soil, brown like mine. Old as energy itself, which was before anything material ever developed. Well, no, perhaps a tad younger. Old as earth and sky, then. When energy found that billowing around as one mass wasn't all it's cracked up to be about. When it decided to shake things up a bit and it came about that to move something, you need dynamic. And for dynamic you need opposing forces, which is what dynamic means: power (dynam) derived from two (dy). Like earth and sky. Or male and female.

Reflecting the essence of energy, of the source of life, circling around the dynamic of forces, Draco and I had been selected. There was no escape. It didn't make sense to sit back and complain "But he used to bully me. He used to be the enemy." Magic had no use for such petty human problems. There were so many forces at work, we were captured in them. Entwined. Because the forces came from us.

I needed to be able to have the upper hand but at the same time be conquered by him. I needed to be pushed forward by his antagonism and slow him down with my nagging and thoroughness. He needed to unload his anger on me and have me soothe his pain as well. He needed to withstand my fury and focus it in useful channels. With passion.

Passion was the key word; passion as in, a force that embraces life. It was contrary to Voldemort, whose cause embraced death and destruction. I used to invest my passion and compassion into numerous causes. And Draco was forced to restrict whatever passion he held and invest it into inappropriate outlets.

We needed to focus our passion for life onto each other and together we would manage this amazing magic that had been gifted to us. Yes, I saw the gift in it. A gift to heal and grow. Life had a funny way of saying thank you. It added an "And now get to work" right after the shoulder pat.

Lock and key. Fitting puzzles pieces. And the energy flowed, magical energy. It went through us but because it was us, Draco and I, man and woman, fitting perfectly. From earth through us into the compow above us and from there into the sky. The circle of life. That's why it felt so effing right, affirming life.

As unlikely as it looked, it made sense. Our differences combined made the perfect lock and key. Yin and Yang. Black and White. Pureblood and Muggleborn. Dark and Light. Giving and Taking. Good and Bad. Healing and Destroying. Earth and Sky. Male and Female. Strong and Weak. Dominance and Submission. Pain and Soothing. Death and Life. Complete in difference. Completeness in opposites united. This was where the power came from, the power of adjunctions. From the earth and the sky. Since ancient times. Put in place way before the pureblood and muggleborn issue was even formulated. When magic was still one, one balanced energy. This was magic in its most basic and most powerful form, undivided by good or bad, connected to nature, to life itself. One whole. Like our union of two.

This was definitely older than prejudices and any manmade concept of putting magic in categories. Like the bloodmagic Lily Potter had cast upon Harry when she had sacrificed herself for her son, this was the magic, the power of life itself. The power of the earth and the sky, the power of creation, of death and destruction and fertility and beginning in the circle of life – a balance. From the beginning of time, derived out of opposites. Alpha and Omega.

Our adjunction. Each person we had turned to for advice, because we assumed they had deeper insight than we had, had helped us and explained their own aspect of things. But they had only likewise seen parts of the whole picture: Andromeda had only seen the energy part, Dumbledore only the magical aspect, Trelawney only the metaphysical; and other people, like friends and family and old teachers, had only seen the unlikely relationship aspect.

Snape had been right as well. For the magic, for the energy, emotions were not important, except in very specific castings, so if I fell in love with Draco Malfoy or not, was not important. I was free to choose whatever I wanted to do, as long as we came together and drew this energy; as long as we used it to balance each other and to use its power for the greater balance. Every time we had come together as opposites, male and female in its most basic form, we had unleashed a bit more of this ancient power of creation. Our magical skills had played a role, certainly, to refine the power of the adjunction, and the compow would have to be used. But with every "union" we had drawn upon this source of magic that was as old as the duality of day and night. It didn't have to be by shagging, but it had had more impact that way.

Feeling the warmth and tingling flow from one to the other, we had deepened our connection every time we had used it. But to form a "relationship" and search for emotions was only sense making for the human mind.

I shuddered. Oh, we would change the face of magic. It would take years, decades perhaps, but then, we were young. And we had supporters. And we had chosen each other.

In my heart, I had known I needed him and that no other male would do. I had thought about Draco when Theo kissed me. I had thought how it would be to be kissed by Draco Malfoy. And at the same time rejected the thought and wanted a deeper kiss from Theo. It wasn't meant to be, I thought at that time. There was this huge social gap between us, he could never be for me, he didn't even like me, in fact, he loathed me. Not that I had liked him. Much. But that had been my brain speaking, and not my heart. The attraction likely went way further back, if Draco's focus on me was any indication. And the way I had reacted to his bullying.

With him I was whole. Or wholer than whole, I should say. Wholier than whole, Professor Dumbledore had said. He complimented me. Draco filled the parts in me that I couldn't fill, and being so completed, I was able to grow. And I did the same for him.

It wasn't that I was unable to live separately anymore, but just like a potion, together we were more than each part separately added together. The difference was the same as having a complete puzzle, all parts present on a pile. It was complete but you didn't know what it showed. When you put it together, however, you still had the same amount of parts but put together, they showed the whole picture. And I finally saw it.

All this came in one big picture and occurred only for a flash second during my climax that shook my shoes off (not that I was wearing any to bed). When it had sunk into my brain and made me realise that I was matched to Draco for life and through life, I shuddered in awe; and in after-climax, of course. Draco simply was the right man for me. My heart, my body, my magic had chosen. How could that be wrong? Even my brain had to accept that. My brain made a feeble attempt to protest, that it had wanted to find the right man just by itself, thank you very much, through extensive research. But I told it to shut up because so far, it hadn't been very successful, and I was going to trust other organs for those kinds of choices in the future, thank you very much.

I was going to take this one. The one my body and my magic recognized as its match.

The one I wanted to embrace and receive again and again. The one who appreciated my magic and my body for what it was. And my brain. He was not afraid of my cleverness, in fact, he demanded it. He demanded that I matched and challenged him the way he did for me. And, oh, it was so good. In every area he challenged me in. And, yes, that included the shagging.

But he demanded that I stood up and participated in that area as well. And to match up to him, I had to unfold this part in me. I had clung to my virginal obstinacy as if it could protect me, which in a way, it had done. Innocently naïve, it had allowed me to ignore what I didn't want to see and focus just on what had to be done. I had been afraid to open that part of me, which would have enlightened the reciprocity of the powers of life. Had I had a broader horizon at the time, I would have likely seen more grey areas (not to mention grey eyes). And I would have seen, and perhaps I had already anticipated it and blocked it so much, that life consists of a myriad of forces, none of them wrong, but each in need of balance.

As a consequence, I would have lacked the persistence to support Harry in his one-dimensional fighting against the dark; the dark that threatened all our lives and beliefs in the good of the world and the overall balance. Another reason to be thankful, that Harry and I had never … Well.

Until now. It was time to give it up. It was time to move on, to move forward, to tackle the new world waiting to be developed.

With the tingling in my centre and the shuddering from the climax I felt like laughing and crying at the same time, but mostly laughing. I was free. I was free to grow in whichever direction I wanted. I was free to love who I fucking wanted. And if I wanted Draco Malfoy, so I fucking would take him. And if I wanted to do that while cursing, I bloody would so as well. I was Hermione Granger and I could hex anybody who wanted to tell me otherwise to next year. I giggled.

Just then, "this one" was howling in release and shuddered terrible in his climax. His body tensed strict backward, his head in his neck, it looked rather unnatural if held for longer. Plus he seemed to choke. As far as climaxes went, this was probably going a bit far. In my newly discovered joy, I decided that I didn't want him to choke to death, and I pulled him down against the resistance of his spine and cradled him against my neck. The choking stopped.

"Draco, Draco, what's wrong?" I asked.

"I see it," he wheezed, squeezing his eyes shut and burrowing his face into my shoulder. "I see the structures for the counters."

Holding his sweaty, heated, strong body, stroking his tense shoulders, feeling his soft hair against my cheek and inhaling his citrus and leather smell that I liked so much, I smiled. Yes. We would make headlines. Not that I needed more celebrity but as Harry had pointed out, we would show the world what magic was for and where it came from. We would show that Voldemort's shite about purebloods and muggleborns was worth nothing, absolutely freaking nothing. We would shut everybody up who ever doubted that muggleborns were not as magical as purebloods. Because to the magic it was all one and the same.

I held him. I saw the enlightment capturing his brain and he was barely able to hold on to reality. He needed me. He needed me to hold him to earth and I did. In reciprocation of what he had done to me, this time I held him. Connected in the most ancient of roots, I held him to me like I wanted to.

I felt in control again. Control is not only about having the ability to give or take, dominance and submission, at least not in the most obvious sense. Control is about believing in yourself and knowing what you want. Loss of control is losing touch with what you want. You could be in control by calmly receiving. Earth being showered in rain from the sky never loses control.

I wanted to be the earth to his light, embracing him, receiving him. And I wanted him to douse me in his power, to nourish me, to fire me up, as it has been since ancient times in the circle of life. Create life. Hope. Freedom. Believe.

The man who rocked my world. The man who shook me up, sometimes painfully, and pushed me forward. But where there is pain, there is healing. And it didn't matter what his name was.

What did my heart tell me?

That I wanted. It was my own body calling out to his, to him. My body, my magic, I. I wanted to be complete. I wanted my counterpart. I wanted man. My awakened femininity wanted the masculinity, the perfect male, the male who matched my power. I wanted the balance, I wanted giving and receiving, equally, the way only he could give me, I wanted it.

I wanted … him.

And the compow smiled brightly.

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_A/N: Awwwww. Well. Phew, that was some work. I'm crying._

_Hermione, of course, is talking about everybody's astral body, their auras and chakras, and so on. I just didn't want to call it so, it would have shifted the focus. But it is a fact that our bodies consist of energy. Check up on chakra colours if you want to know what they mean. There will be more explanations in the next chapter. _

_And what Draco is seeing, I envisioned as the models of molecules that we know, only with pure energy._

_So, are they soul mates? I would like to think this is a bigger calibre than soul mating, that's why I shied away from the expression. They channel and transform the (magical) energy, and complimentary become balanced through each other. Different league, I thought._

_And while researching for this chapter and digging into websites about auras and astrology and energy healing and so on, I realized that I've done many things intuitively right: their colouring corresponding to chakras (the purple of the compow corresponds with the crown chakra, the connection to the divine), their astrology, smells associating with the root chakra, emotional and personality developments they've undergone associated with certain chakras, it's a bit scary, because I'm not really into all that. If you want to know more, just google chakras. It'll explain the associating colours as well._

_One more chapter. Through all the re-writing, I had to rearrange things and one more chapter emerged, so you'll understand the whole energy issue better, and what it does to them. And then the Epilogue. Well, an epilogue in many parts, to show you where they go from here. Harry gets to say something and we need to hear how Ron reacted to Lavender. And we need to see how they work their compow and some other things. So, more tidbits to come, to round it off. Riding into the sunset and all that ;-))_

_Tell me what you think, about the solution to it all. And tell me what you still need to know. There will be a part the above mentioned parts about Ron and Lavender, about Draco and Hermione working their compow, about Draco and his father, about them and their friends, and about their future plans. Most of it is already written. I realize that I need a part of Hermione meeting Narcissa again (not done yet), a Ministry ball (which I had planned for a long time but still not written), perhaps with a public show of their work, and Draco facing his friends after the Party (not written yet)._

_Anything else you miss, any situation you think they have to face in the near future, tell me. Keep in mind that this is my first book length story and it's very hard to keep all the narrative, every character development in line from beginning to end. Everything you notice that doesn't feel right, I want to know. In a review ;D_


	43. Balance

_A/N: Hey, song for the monologue here is "Supermassive black hole" by Muse. You'll see why. _

_And thank you, Artemisgoddess (I'm glad that it still makes sense. I wasn't so sure about that.), alright, Gryff-Slytherin (I read that's a common problem with phones. I wasn't insinuating that you slacked in your reading, though ;-))) Anon, thank you, weird new format of reviews, you were the first. _

_Guys, don't give up hope (what this chapter is all about, or, well, as it turns out, the next chapter). Knowing me, even though I have the "Epilogue" mapped out and half written, it's gonna take some time. Not waiting time (that, too), but time until it's all out written. I have snippets of scenes in my head, but each may mean another chapter, basically. Possibly shorter than my usual 14k, but none the less own chapters. I just don't know yet. I'm pretty confident, though, that you'll all feel good at the end, because it's the End (capital). I will likely fill in more snippets of their future life together as one-shots related to the story, but they will have to come through inspiration over time. For now, I have to get this one finished, so that we all can sleep peacefully, and I will have to do that before September, because in September hell will break loose in my job and I won't have a spare thought for my story. _

_So, a little support wouldn't go amiss here. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed over the last chapter. I've just read a fabulous story by galfoy (not that I would compare myself to her brilliance) and the fact that people review like crazy to keep her posting made me realize that I must be doing something wrong. I've seen abysmal stories that stopped making sense after a few chapters but had thousand reviews. (I didn't check, half of it could have been flames). _

_Whichever way we look at it, I'm running out of time (once again), I will have to leave on vacation this Saturday and I have no idea when I'll next be able to post before I'll be back August 4. Work pressure got the best of me and I couldn't wrap my head around the story properly and so, this chapter was lacking. I have good hope that I'll have time (and inspiration) on my vacation to write more but for now, Draco's and Hermione's after talk didn't want to come out of my head. I'm therefore giving you only the very brief interlude that was part of their chapter, but the only part that was finished._

_Don't be mad at me, I just couldn't resist making this next part a little surreal. There is lots of information in it and little bizarre notes. I'm sorry if it bothers you, but this is non-negotiable. Blame it on the stress of not knowing whether I'll be deleted or not. (Here they come, here they come, arrrgghh) … (silence ensues)_

**.**

**Chapter 36: Balance**

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**Energy's POV:**

_(Mindless humming drifts over the ether waves, not unlike Luna's humming, and a mild hurricane sweeps over the American Midwest. The humming turns into thoughts in a nanosecond, when it perceives the cusp of Draco's howl, and the hurricane wipes away into non-existence.)_

Finally. This was becoming tedious. My, but the female resisted taking the balance with tooth and nail. Or so they say, these humans. Now, with this last bout of exchange, the male has finally shed his abundance of primal energy and balanced the female's lack thereof. Now, they are good.

But that was some work. I haven't worked this hard since this negative carrier resurrected, Voldi what's-its-name. Tricky bit that he used the actual energy that destroyed him in the first place to renervate his existence. Ingenious for a single human, I have to admit. But it was a negative energetic catastrophe to tweak life energy like that. And he didn't stop there, but piled more negativity on. What a struggle to put all sources in place to balance that one. Ah, but existence would be bo-ring if I didn't have to do that. Entertaining it was, at the very least.

But who would have thought that this female would cling so obstinately to her lack of balance. And it was tiring her out, to counter her lack of primal. She was driving herself raw, missing her balance. So wired, driving herself deeper into her lack.

(_The billowing mass lifts an exasperated eyebrow. You wouldn't have seen it, but it was there, we assure you. And the bird, which was pushed off its branch from it, can testify. It went into flight and settled on the next branch, so no harm done. Just in case you are wondering, why birds sometimes fly to the next branch over, for no apparent reason.)_

What a powerful but unbalanced human being. Something's wrong with my design, if these little bodies can accumulate so much one-sided energy without seeking the balance. Am I ever glad that I found that male for her to help with that.

It is quite funny, given the way she always accumulated mental energy, that it escaped her notice what it did to her. Humans are usually aware that their little bodies channel energy from earth to sky. Most civilisations actually developed sciences for it.

Some called it God's breath or soul, others divine powers, others simply life energy, chi. But they all agreed that it flows through the human body and that it corresponds with and influences the bodily function and collects at certain points in the body, through which it can be exchanged. And that it needs to be balanced. Funny that she didn't think about it. She knew that energy was involved.

Well, true, some humans are more aware of it than others. And funny, isn't it, that those people who have higher awareness are taken less seriously, than those who ignore it entirely, and disclose their lack of knowledge thus. Or their limit of horizon.

But it is an undeniable scientific fact that there is an energy field around each human, and especially around these magical humans, and that it needs to be cleared and balanced as everything else. And that these humans face severe consequences, if they don't.

Like it happened to her. She was always taking only mental energy in, and gave her other energy away. That was okay for balance in a very young human, but at one point, it needs to shift, when they mature. They need to account for the primal energy of procreation. He, on the other hand, had too much of this outgoing primal energy.

And she resisted, frozen in her mental energy. It was bound to explode in her face at one point. She was so set that she had to reverse her usual intake modus to get her energies flowing again. It was good for their adjunction magic, but it was absolutely necessary for her. Compassion only gets you so far. And for him. She had to take this destructive primal energy from him. His excess would have destroyed him in the long term. He was starving his energetic centre, his "heart", they say. And such an imbalance these humans cannot take for long. A security valve, so to say. Humans wither and die when this imbalance does not get resolved. They need to feel the life energy, or "love" as they call it. They need to vibrate with the power of life. It's what connects them; not only to another human, but also to life itself. If they cut themselves off, then we get this negative carrier as a worst case scenario, or they die and move on.

_(The mass hums "Love is in the air" by John Paul Young and a medium earthquake shakes a part of the Pacific Ocean, causing a Tsunami to wipe over an uninhabited desolate island of lava mass. In a few hundred years, life will grow on it.)_

And I couldn't have an adjunction going up in smoke. My reputation would be ruined. So, she had to take other energy in to balance herself. And she wouldn't for the world of her do it, bringing herself out of swing. It's such a simple thing, taking what you need. But she wouldn't do it. Good thing the male was such an expert at taking. She finally understood.

I understand why she was so frozen. These fragile humans, they react badly to an overload of negative energy. And apparently, this negative energy from this Vourcy-source was very much directed at her. But she should have understood immediately, with her abundance of mental powers, the first time she met him alone, undisturbed by other carriers, that she was meant to balance him, and he her, it was clear as day. She should have understood that changes were afoot, also for herself, but she hung onto her set energetic profile.

Well, at least she wasn't distracted as other females of her age by the attentions of her males, and in such close proximity to two males. I'll say her lack of primal energy and abundance of mental has helped in the balance to push the positive carrier forward, but at what cost. I didn't think she would become so congealed, erm, frigid. I always underestimate the power of mental energy. In particular in some humans it is a force to reckon with.

In the grand scheme of things, it is nothing. Most living things don't pay it a second thought, but some humans … That male had to put out all stops to soften the female's energy structure.

(_The mass sighs. Somewhere in China, a shovel topples over. A boy, who was just about to grab it, stares at it.)_

Poor bugger. Well, he doesn't look like he's complaining. About time that he stopped doing that. After all, she helped him as well. He so needed the balance of his heart energy, and he was drowning in his abundance of primal energy. And his energy centre had to be knocked down a few rungs. It went to his head, really, thinking he was so important, and on the other hand being knocked off his pedestal all the time. In turn, her self-esteem is restored.

And I would have never noticed these two had not his energy called out for a balance so badly. He was fraying everything around him, including the positive carrier, carry, … Harry. Harry, that's right. Well, this male disturbed my positive carrier, I had to do something. This male needed soothing. The whole way he had grown into his magic had been an entire row of incidents against his energetic nature. He wasn't made to serve; he was set up to create. She was made to connect and balance. She was set up to lend her powers to soothe and smooth her surroundings and connect everything. It is her nature. And he needed it so badly. Well.

And then his connection with the negative source, Voldi-source, whatever. That didn't help with his already unbalanced energy. It dragged him further away from the balance. Freaking complex, this was becoming. And they were already sliding into a negative cataclysm, what with that Voldi's doing. It would have eventually imploded their entire planet they are living on. Why, you didn't know how Black holes come to pass? How do you explain then, that they draw in the energy that surrounds them, if not to balance their negative energy sheet?

Well, we could avert that, at least. That would have been tedious, after all the effort I already invested building it. But we need a bit more positive balance here, still. Hence, these two. If they neutralize more dark magic, which draws more positive energy from this planet, and set a good example for future generations, we are looking up, I'd say.

_(The billowing mass purses its lips thoughtfully. A fish jumps out of the water in the Atlantic Ocean and is a bit surprised, because it was just about to eat a piece of algae right in front of its mouth.)_

But they were always at each other's throat, unleashing their pent-up energy because they couldn't get to their balancing part. As far as humans go, this not-touching rule is quite stupid. They don't differ. They are all packs of energy, period, meant to exchange and balance each other, some better than others. These two, they sensed it the first time they met, that they should touch, but they rather hid behind their preconceived notions, instead of following their instincts. But when she touched him rather feisty in a confrontation, I thought they could match. But then, they didn't touch again. I couldn't see how they would exchange. They had to find a common middle ground to come together.

And then his energy frazzled and unravelled and she came to soothe the broken pieces. She shifted the matrix that night. But again, I had to wait for them to come to an agreement that they could exchange and work the magic given to them. Fruitfully, not only reluctantly. Because with reluctance, they wouldn't have understood what to do with it. They wouldn't have known how to combine the elements.

The male had to combine his airy mental spryness with the peaceful flowing water element and the female had to enrich her earthy fertility and growth power with the fire of passion. Together, they unite and combine the elements.

I couldn't give them the last piece of knowledge before they had reached that level: the female's discovery of her fire and the male's discovery of the watery peaceful flow of life. They were both blocking this last step, giving up their last reservations. But they needed to open their minds to the energy, well, me, to understand this last bit.

Ah, Gaia and Uranus, the eternal fight of dominance and fertile procreation at the same time. The female being dominated to receive the seed of life, and enthroning the male in his natural repose after the deed is done. Until he comes and conquers her again. Perfect in their difference, moving the world. And so they will be.

_(The mass sighs. A minor gush of wind sweeps the hat of a lady's head, who's distraught because she found her boyfriend cheating. It flies a few metres and lands by the feet of a scowling gentleman, who had to suffer a major setback in life. He considers briefly stomping on the stupid hat, but finally decides to pick it up and hand it back to the lady. The lady smiles gratefully and the gentleman, enchanted with the way her smile makes him think of nicer things in life, asks her to go for a coffee with him, to which she gladly acquiesces. They talk and enjoy each other's company very much, taking their minds of their recent bad luck. After the coffee, the lady writes her phone number on a scrap of paper which she puts in the gentleman's pocket, which he doesn't notice. He goes home, whistling after his splendid afternoon with a very coincidental acquaintance and puts his jacket in the laundry sack. The next day, a woman at the cleaners, who empties out his pockets, finds it and puts it aside with a smile, to be put in an extra bag, to return to the gentleman. Another gush of wind blows the paper out of the open window next to her, and since the cleaner is in the same house as the gentleman lives in, it lands through another open window directly in front of the gentleman's telephone. When he picks up his laundry from the cleaner in the afternoon, the laundry woman tells him desperately that she found a phone number on a scrap of paper in his pocket but before she could secure it, it was gone, like gone with the wind (through her window, that is). The gentleman understands immediately that it must have been the phone number of the lady he had coffee with the day before, the one he had been thinking about all day and berated himself that he had no way to get in touch with, and therefore, had received a reprimand from his superior because he didn't' get any work done. Disgruntled and bilious, he carries his laundry back to his apartment and dumps it in his hallway to find a scrap of paper with a phone number on top of his telephone. Losing not a second, smiling brightly, he picks up the phone and dials. He never figures out how the paper scrap got there, but he believes in fate. As things go, two years down the road, these two will marry and produce four children. And all because of an energetic sigh. Such is life.)_

_(But back to the billowing mass which caused all this.)_

Ah, dears, there is a difference between owning and understanding the power of life. And you had to understand first. Perhaps, now, you'll be able to teach this exact difference. This knowledge got a little lost in the last few hundreds of your human years. That's the exact reason why you ended up in this imminent cataclysm. This negative carrier, he was so negative because he just wanted to pile it up and command its power. But he didn't understand it. Not at all. It's not about owning as much as possible. You shouldn't own more than is allotted to you, it was for a reason. It can be replenished by sharing and dividing it. Balance. Everybody who's able to wield this life power is supposed to expand it, to pass it on, to enlighten others about it, not to draw it in and collect and manipulate it.

I hope these two will finally be able to do it. And teach it to the other carrying humans. Now, that they found their balance.

Well, _(the billowing mass interlaces its energetic fingers, stretching them until they creak. A freighter comes into an immediate storm, banging it about, but nobody comes to harm, except for the ship cat, which loses its sardine in the ship's rolling, and bites its lip in frustration.)_

So, let's see: giving versus taking and receiving, balanced, check.

Heart energy from female to male, to be able to feel love, for himself and others, his connection to all that is, check;

Primal energy from male to female, not only for her procreative power but also for her creativity and her manifestation of herself, so she wouldn't have to feel so driven all the time, check.

Root energy, connection to the roots, family, etc. from female to male. Or from male to female? It's balanced anyway, check.

Energy centre, self-esteem, believe in self, from male to female, balanced, check. Expressive energy from female to male, check. Forward moving, focusing energy against transforming, all-including energy from male to female, balanced, check.

Masculinity - femininity, check. Dominance – submission, check. Negative – positive, check. Mental – emotional, check. Physical – intellectual, check. Dark – light, check. Inquiring – accepting, check. Soothing – hurting, check. Expanding – yielding, check. Caring – self-serving, check. Aggravating – nurturing, check.

And their adjunction magic to top it all up, check.

Anything else? _(It wipes its forehead, figuratively. An avalanche goes down in the Swiss Alps, missing a village by mere hundred metres, renewing every inhabitant's believe in divine powers.) _

I've rarely seen such a complete pair. Good job selecting them, my dear.

Don't praise yourself, you.

Oh, shut up, you.

Now, off to new sources. There are a nice female Antipodian Opaleye dragon and a red-headed dragon carer in Rumania who would make a nice combination to promote dragon welfare. They are close to extinct, these wonderful powerful creatures. Now, I can't have that. Then I would need another negative influence to counter their missing existence. And the last one overdid it just a tiny bit. Hence, the adjunction of these two lovers.

Ah, it's not easy to constantly balance everything. They are so stubborn, these humans. What was I thinking, creating them?

I wasn't.

Exactly.

A hobby to take up, I suppose. In the next life.

Oh, stop snickering at your own jokes.

Why, I make the best. And you can stop this eye rolling.

(_Rolls eyes again, causing a wave of energy to disturb a sleeping dragon in a cave in England, making it poke its head out and cause a scene at a magical picnic site right close to the cave entrance. A young witch, who was picnicking with her parents, sees the dragon and drops her chicken drum in awe by the powerful terrifying creature, and instead of being afraid, she vows to protect these creatures with her life, when she finishes school. She'll go to Rumania, to a well-known dragon compound, under the tutelage of a red-headed English dragon carer.) _

Well, shoo, if we want to make it to Rumania today we should get going.

Why, we are already there, what do you think of that?

Thinking again? You? Don't make me laugh. Oh, well. We'll see what comes of it. …..

_(Bickering continues faintly into the ether waves)._

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_._

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_A/N: Talking about future stories, I got inspired by this chapter for a story about Charlie Weasley adjuncting with a dragon and the girl who got surprised at her picnic. Well, now, if only I had time to write it. Seems I won't be running out of ideas. _

_Do me all a favour – Feedback, I need feedback. Especially to the last chapter._

_I'm working hard on the second part of this chapter/the next chapter but in case I won't get it done before Friday night, worst case scenario is early August, provided nothing goes horribly wrong._

_Have a great summer y'all. _

_M_


	44. Growing hope

_A/N: Just for clarification, and I hope you understood, I have not tacked Hermione as a sub from now on. Quite the contrary. You got that, right? There was just this element for her to let go from her urge to control and her bossiness and Draco being the man she could actually do it with, for her to balance herself. Read on, people._

_Thanks for reviews (ha, this was better. I'm not greedy but two reviews, well, three in the end, for a major chapter had me wheeling a bit): newyorklover (did we clear it up? I believe I actually said Yin and Yang in Hermione's final epiphany ;-))), maristelle (not a chance I'm giving this up), Artemisgodess (thanks for bringing up the tally by three ;-))), scv914 (I didn't mean that you don't support me anymore. I was just so surprised, major chapter (in my mind), and nobody said anything), Gryff-Slytherin (no worries, it was just an interlude of bizarreness), maramalolz (Is it really? I wasn't sure, and I needed his name to reflect his dream counterpart anyway. Thanks for the info, though), Anonymous, Anon (Romania it is)._

_And thanks to Artemisgodess who said "more action, less contemplation, please", I rewrote this entire chapter (twice). Being on a long flight to Australia and for long hours in the car, driving (left hand side, ugh), I had some ideas. But it took a while. I took the smut out, it was just too much. Say "Yay" if you want it back. I'll try to incorporate it elsewhere if you want. I took out lots of other stuff as well. I find that's the hardest part of writing: deciding NOT to leave something in your story that you have already written, because it doesn't really fit._

_And I did have internet every once in a while in Australia but due to rewriting and distracting Hunger Games, I really only got it done now. And there seems to be a flurry of people updating right now, so I'm in good company. _

_I'm feeling a little mellow, though, because I had to let you wait for so long, so chapter songs are Jack Johnson, "Questions" and "Supposed to be". Enjoy._

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**Chapter 37: Growing Hope**

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It was quiet. Quiet after the storm. Until Hermione stirred.

"Draco?"

"Hm?" he answered languidly, still with his face in the crook of her neck.

"You're crushing me," she sighed.

"Hm," he made in reply and shifted a little to the left, supporting himself on his arm.

Hermione waited for him to move further but he didn't.

"Don't you want to get off?" she huffed.

She felt him grin into her neck. "I thought I just did. But if you mean, do I want to get out of you, then, no, I don't. And I insist that I'll be allowed from now on to get to this, my favourite place in the whole world, without further ado should I so desire." He wriggled a little in her to underline his point.

Hermione snorted. "Oh, you insist."

Draco raised his head to be able to look at her. "Yes, I insist."

She huffed. "Don't I have any saying in it?"

Draco put his trademark Malfoy smirk on full display. "Of course, you have a saying in it. Although, why you would object to this most pleasurable undertaking, me shagging you, is beyond me. As I recall, you had no objections while doing it." He wriggled his hips into her again and grinned cheeky. "You can't want me to roll off entirely. This has to feel good."

Hermione blushed. "It does. But I still need to breathe. And it won't give you the right to do whatever you please."

Draco narrowed his eyes at her, his smirk melting away as ice cream in the sun. "I'll make sure to take your mood into consideration." None the less, he reacted to her bucking him off.

Hermione sighed in relief as he rolled to the side. As pleasurable as it was to have Draco Malfoy between her legs, he was considerable taller, and therefore heavier than she.

"That's not the point, Draco," Hermione said with a frown and another sigh. She hadn't meant to shoo him away; just to get some breathing space. And to stake her independence, behaviours in bed aside. She turned to him, where he was covering his face with both hands, and asked sceptically: "What's wrong with you?"

Draco didn't reply. Instead, he pulled his hands down his face and stared at the ceiling.

"Draco?"

"I'm stuck with you, Granger."

Hermione narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

Draco continued to look up at the ceiling. "It means that there won't be anybody else, ever again."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," she shot back.

He turned his head to her, solemnly. "No, not bad. Just so final."

"When you say "stuck", it sounds terribly bad. And unwelcome," Hermione hissed.

"It does, doesn't it?" Draco snorted. "You're right."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Could you be any more fatalistic?"

"No," he snorted. "Being stuck in a loveless relationship is what my life was going to be about anyway. I just had some hopes that with you it could be different, but apparently my lot in life is just that."

Hermione frowned at him. "What do you mean, being stuck in a loveless relationship?"

He sneered. "Well, as the high and mighty Gryffindor princess, apparently you can't love a pureblood Slytherin coward and liar, but could you at least give it some effort to not show me that I am beneath you every opportunity?"

"I … what?" Hermione blubbered, uncharacteristically flustered.

Draco turned away again, putting an arm over his face to sever the eye contact. "You heard me, Granger."

Hermione was disquiet. She had done it again. She would have to learn to be a little more considerate with Draco's feelings. He was new to dealing with loving emotions after all and wasn't aware that they were not as ephemeral as smoke. In fact, once accepted, they could be quite indestructible. "Draco, it's not that I can't love you. It was just that, with the magic connecting us and the fact that we've already, you know, …"

"Shagged," Draco interjected, without looking her way.

"..Done it, yes," Hermione continued irritated, "it seemed such a foregone conclusion to fall in love, and just the very fact that I had to made my brain scream bloody murder."

"You don't have to do anything, Granger. Do not bend over backwards to bring up any emotions, in any case. Gryffindor princess, Harry Potter's best friend, you couldn't do wrong if you stole the silverware from the Ministry. People would say you needed them for a good cause. You can do everything and if you never did anything ever again, that would be okay, too," Draco reproached her sharply. "Other than my Death Eater being. I won't ever be able to do anything right again."

"Former Death Eater. The emphasis is on former. Or reformed. And that's not true," Hermione said heatedly.

"Ha," Draco spit back with glinting eyes, "I've got the mark to prove it. I'll always be a Death Eater, so by all means, don't ever force yourself to fall in love with me," he ended on a growl and raised his left arm where the blood from their cutting had dried. Hermione stroked over it.

"When did the cut close?" she mused, avoiding her faux-pas.

"The same time as your bite. When you pulled me to you and you wanted my wholesome, handsome self. And I wanted yours," Draco frowned, which was a step up from his placidly controlled face.

Hermione rolled back, withdrawing: "I know I don't have to force myself to fall in love with you."

Draco snorted again. "Oh? Where did that come from? No more fighting me over it?"

"No. But you're not making it any easier," Hermione mumbled.

"Tough luck, … Hermione." Draco turned back on his back with a sneer.

"Could you be any more antagonistic, Draco? I am trying to find reasons to like you more, you know," Hermione held against, utterly frustrated.

Draco turned back to her and regarded her with snakelike slits. "You don't want that, Granger. Either you like the way I put pressure against your stubbornness and boring bookishness, or you don't. If you haven't found anything likable in me so far, chances are you won't. And I'm not going to accommodate you on the slim chance you find a little ray of sunshine in my character and "like" me."

Hermione huffed in frustration. Why did life connect her with this bloody controversial young man? It would have been so much easier with Ron. Ron, at least, she could shut up. But, well, Ron didn't make her tingle. Tingle from head to toe in anticipation of the fire consuming her when touched by him. She was a clear headed, practical kind of girl, for sure; one who used her head first and foremost. But she also liked this carnal part of her, this hungry part for the connection with a man, which was only just blooming. She would never want to give up this part of her, this necessary part that gave her a deeper insight into the turnings of life; this innate powers of man and woman. Hermione knew she would have never discovered this with Ron.

And it wasn't that she didn't like Draco. After all the magical exploration they had done together, she had gotten a certain appreciation for his knack of magic, for his skill. Draco was good for her. Despite his antagonism, he supported her magical explorations. Antagonizing her was his way of spurring her on. Ron was never this curious about magic, never this willing to explore it further, above and beyond what's been taught, sharp about the way magic worked. Ron just used it for his own comfort.

Well, she shouldn't be unjust. He had fought with Harry and her, and there had been nothing comfortable about it. But Ron used magic the way he had gotten to know it and would never think of expanding it. She would be intellectually stuck with him. Or at least, she wouldn't experience any support for her exploration when it meant waiting for his meal. So, she should be grateful to have found a partner who supported and participated in her research.

And yet. She had been in a war. She had sacrificed a huge part of her childhood for the cause, for a comfortable life for herself and other muggleborns in the wizarding world. And now she wanted a full life, when she was falling in love. Hermione knew that she was putting high expectations on Draco to fulfil, but she wanted to try anyway. If anybody could do it, Draco would be the man. She tried to express her imaginations.

"You know, this is supposed to be a new world. A world without fear and sacrifice and force. A world full of sunshine and laughter and butterflies."

Draco removed his arm, wiped his face again and then turned to her. "Are you really that naïve, Granger? Even without Voldemort, life is not only about butterflies." He said the last work disgusted. "You've been in a war and now, you want butterflies?"

Hermione was stubborn. Always. Even as a toddler, she had been stubborn. Her mother would testify to it. Her mother. Whenever her mother would be back. She shook her head to get rid of these unwanted thoughts about her parents. They made her angry. And the only person to be angry at was the blond young man across from her, who claimed to be in love with her but couldn't even bring himself to be the least bit friendly. But she didn't want to be angry with him. She had something to tell him. Stuck with her. Hah!

"That's so typical, Malfoy. After all we've been through, now that I finally understood what this is all about, you can't even for a second show a person I would want to fall in love with. I should have known, despite all your confessions, after all your discoveries of feelings, we can't even hold one civil conversation without bickering. You can't even be friendly enough for me to tell you something important. Maybe you can treat your pureblooded brides-to-be that way and they won't complain because they want to land Draco Malfoy but I don't. I don't need a pureblooded bigoted former Death Eater git to fill my life."

Draco Malfoy looked thoroughly put out. "I thought you had me all figured out."

Hermione rubbed her face. "I did. I do know why you are being a git but can you stop this torturous bickering for two seconds?"

By the way his face turned to shock immediately, she realized that once again, she had put her foot in her mouth. Unfortunately, there were some delicate topics between them, like killing a mudblood and serving the Dark Lord and torture for sports, which were better left unsaid.

She hid her face behind her hands in frustration. When she spoke, she mumbled through her hands: "We have to stop doing this, Draco. The unnecessary riling up and jumping at each other's potential insinuations. We can't keep wincing when the other said something that reminds us of the past. We are supposed to create a new future."

She exhaled angrily. "What do you say? I won't blame you for your innocent, well, almost, contribution to the dark cause and for being a brat and you won't blame me for besting you in class and for being friends with the saviour of the world, alright?"

Draco looked as if he wouldn't put much faith in either their ability to pull that off, but he asked: "Do you think we can?"

Hermione exhaled one more time. "If we both put our minds to it, I believe so, yes."

"Alright," he said wearily. "Let's give it a trial, Hermione."

"Alright, then," she sighed. Relaxing, she put one hand on his pecks and followed the line between them with her index finger, musing. "I like it when you call me by my first name."

At her words and her touch, Draco's face turned soft. "Do you?"

Connecting with his gaze, Hermione smiled a little. "I do."

Hermione felt the saliva collecting in her mouth when she sank into the crystal clear grey of his gaze. Her tongue swished around, distributing moisture over every part of her mouth and lips, tingling expectantly. Her lips fell open on their own accord, in remembrance and welcome of the heated pressure of Draco's lips on hers. When she realized what was going on, a preparation for a deep kiss, she bit her lip in confusion. Since when was her body reacting on its own like this?

Draco's gaze swerved to follow the movements of her mouth. Placated by her attempts not to fight, he said: "You misunderstood me earlier, Hermione. I didn't mean it's unwelcome to me to be with you. I was just anticipating that you would dislike it that we are stuck together. After your reluctance over the last few days, I was sure you would never accept a pureblooded coward and liar as your partner for life."

Hermione was flustered and blushed. "Draco, if all you were was a pureblood coward and liar, do you think you would have adjuncted with me?"

His eyes went back to hers. "What do I know of life's plans? Perhaps it wanted to knock you down a rung or two."

Hermione snorted in amusement. "Draco, really. Opportunity and reward, remember? It's all connected."

"How's it connected?" he asked frowning.

Looking into his open face, for once genuinely curious, Hermione thought about how to put into words what she had seen. She decided it was best to start at the beginning. "Do you remember what Dumbledore said, about wizards and witches not being born as purebloods?" she started quietly.

Draco nodded, still frowning. "Of course."

"So, if some of them started out as muggleborns, if we all started out as muggleborns, where do you think the magic came from, originally? Did you ever think about it? Where does magic come from? Even your pureblood magic?"

Draco just stared. He was about to say what a stupid question it was, duh, but he somehow couldn't bring himself to say it. It wasn't a stupid question. It was just one that nobody ever wanted to ask.

At his hesitation, Hermione nodded. "I can't believe that nobody ever stumbled over this before. You know, muggles are not magical, but they do have inquisitive minds, well, some of them. That's how they know to help themselves, without magic. If something unusual occurs, they ask questions. But for you wizards, it's always been so natural to have magic, that you stopped asking where it came from. Because you always had it."

Draco tried to overplay his perplexity. How could he have never thought about it? Well, because he had an answer. Magic came from your parents. Your ancestors. That was the whole point, wasn't it? Passed on through generations of magical stock. The way Granger approached the subject made it very clear, though, that this was not it. "Muggles have inquisitive minds? Like the Inquisitor, you mean?" he asked, annoyed over his own naivety.

Hermione frowned. "No, not like the Inquisitor. I believe muggles came a bit further than that, in the last, what was it, 400 - 800 years?"

"So, you think, they would just rejoice when a wizard stepped between them and openly disclosed, that, yeah, there was magic and people who wielded it?" Draco asked sceptically. He didn't know exactly why he asked her that. It was just difficult to swallow that she so vehemently defended muggles; that she pulled out a quality muggle characteristic, while questioning his world. Plus she aggravated him, when she opened her mouth. That was something he still despised about her; she would always point to his obvious shortcomings whenever she opened her mouth. Much like he himself. Damn.

She frowned more deeply. "Maybe not. But when you look at the bigoted attitude towards them, can you really blame them? And I'm not arguing to revoke the Statute of Secrecy or to go out and embrace all muggles and declare our wizarding world as the next entertainment park. I'm just saying that sometimes it needs an inquisitive mind to ask questions that people from the inside have forgotten or overlooked."

He didn't want to argue with her. The Inquisition was a dark chapter in history, period, but they had just closed one in the wizarding world as well. He didn't want to play tit for tat.

"Where does it come from, then?" Draco asked hoarsely.

Hermione took a deep breath. "I'd hazard a guess that magic comes from the same source that makes the sun appear every morning and created life at the beginning of time. The one that makes the universe turn. There may be a special, particular source for the adjunction magic, though, I'm not quite sure about it."

Draco swallowed. Why had it never occurred to him to ask about the origin of magic? His father had always impressed that they were special and muggles were below them, because they didn't have magic. Never had he mentioned where the wizards got their magic from. And why the muggles didn't have any; in a delicate balance. And he, Draco, had always just adhered to his father's preaching. Stupid.

The way Granger put it, it sounded pretty big. Enormous. Gargantuan. True to form, he picked on the one thing she wasn't so sure about. Picking at imperfections in other people's thoughts always made him feel safe.

"What makes you say that adjunctions may or may not come from a different source?"

Hermione reared her head back, deliberating at the same time as she was talking, but she didn't look away from him. This was something they shared, she wanted to keep their connecting gaze.

"Because to adjunctions opposites are important, remember?" He nodded. "And to magic in general, it's not. Ergo, for adjunctions an energy source is based on opposites and for the regular magic, it doesn't have to be. I assume for adjunctions, there is a sub source."

"So," Draco swallowed again. "So, how come you know where magic comes from?"

She exhaled. Feeling her breath in his face, Draco noticed that she distanced herself, and he didn't like it one bit. He pulled her back against him.

"I had a vision, just now, when we … you know."

Draco smirked against his astonishment. Hermione still had a ways to go before she could overcome her virginal shyness. "When we shagged?" He nuzzled his nose against hers, reminiscing their incredible shag. Every time he came in her, it was with a force that made his world shift. Just thinking about it, Draco felt a shiver down his spine.

She exhaled again. Getting all the held breaths off her chest took some time, apparently. "Yes, when we shagged. When I came, something exploded in me and set something free. At least, it felt that way. And with it, I received a vision of our energetic set up, the energy field that is us, a pillar for each of us, plus the compow. Each pillar has certain exchange points, in different colours, and I saw a visual of the way we exchange our energies. Which is actually the reason why we fit so well, what everybody was saying."

"Why do we fit so well?" Draco asked. He had no doubt that they fit, the way her curves fit into his body were every indication, but if there was a reason for it, he wanted to know, naturally.

"We simply compliment and complete our magical, energetic profile. Where I have more, you have less and we equalize. And the other way round: where you have more, I have less and you give it to me."

He smirked at her words "Give it to me". He was giving it to her, alright. "You mean, my abundance of sexual encounters counterbalances your virginal personality?"

Hermione exhaled deeply for the third time, trying to lighten the enormity of her discoveries. "Yes," she confirmed. "That's exactly what I mean."

He brushed her hair back from her face, where it had fallen. "And the way you generously give to every living thing counterbalances my way to suck everything dry because I claim to be entitled?"

She held his gaze but her glance was a strange one; soft and vulnerable, but indulgent at the same time. "Somewhat like it. And more, I figure," she breathed against his lips. So close. And yet not close enough.

Wanting complete closeness, the way he only had with Hermione, he touched his lips against hers, very softly, moving tenderly, tasting her with the tip of his tongue gliding over her upper lip, and feeling her respond the same way to his lips. The tingling from this softest of kisses tightened his chest, and he had to pull back, when he felt he would suffocate if he didn't detach himself. He inhaled deeply and said: "Thank you and you're welcome."

"Yes," Hermione said with a bright smile. "I say the same."

He smiled back, when a thought struck him. "What about the compow?"

She answered immediately. "The compow is nourished from us. The energy is being channelled through us and into the compow. We get the extra energy of the compow from the source, but it has to come through us. That's the reason why we have double the amount each, and sharing it. And the more opposites a pair of carriers has, the better they can channel the source energy or magic. That's why it becomes brighter as it connects the two carriers tighter. "

Draco digested the new information. "If the energy comes through us with the adjunction, it does indeed not matter how we feel about the whole issue, doesn't it? It would be there either way."

"Yes," Hermione confirmed. "That's exactly what I thought. From my vision, I understood that we in particular directly reflect the duality of earth and sky or the male and female principle of the universe, and this was why we've been given this enormous power; the power to change the world, to change life. The powers that be just had to make sure that we wouldn't kill each other before it gave us extra power, and so they waited for me to openly declare you as not an enemy anymore."

"Merlin's baggy pants, Granger." Draco was awed.

She chuckled. For him to say such an exclamation was beyond silly.

"We've been given this power by basically life itself?"

She nodded. "Basically, yes."

"Salazar's rod." He still looked in total awe, thoughts about this awesome power given to him, Draco Malfoy, together with Hermione Granger, after all he had done, after all his family had done, swirling through his head. Was this like a free card for him? He knew they had a purpose but other than this, could he use it as he saw fit?

A glint mixed in his wide open face. "Do you think I could use it to even some of life's unfairness?"

A glint Hermione didn't like. She became wary. "What do you mean, Draco? Which unfairness?"

His face turned grim. "Well, there are a few people who I wouldn't mind if they sullied their pants for the way they've treated me."

"No," she said immediately, laying her hands on his chest. "No, you can't let the power corrupt you. You've been picked for a reason. You've been chosen together with me because you won't abuse it, won't you? You are more than man's enough to be aware of the power and its potential and not to abuse it. We've already had our disagreement about that, remember? Over Flint and Pucey."

He frowned at her. "How am I "man enough"? What is that supposed to mean?"

"It's all connected, Draco. That's what I meant. Energy and Magic and Karma and our intimacy. It's all our flowing energy," she whispered. "It needs to stay balanced. How will you repay your debt if you abuse this fantastic power? And what about me? You need me with you if you want the full power. Otherwise, you'll just be you with your own strength. Are you going to drag me along when you exact your revenge? How do you think I could ever look at myself or you, if I ever contributed to petty revenge? You're supposed to rise above. That's what you have to do. For me and for yourself."

Draco frowned at the slim woman in front of him. The slim woman he wanted to share indescribable bliss with, because he loved to see her tip over the edge. He thought it was the most beautiful sight in the world. And because she deserved every good feeling he had in his power to give. She had saved him from the deepest black abyss.

He should have known though, if Hermione Granger was involved, of course, he wouldn't be able to use this awesome power freely. Oh, how he could crush all those bastards who had laughed when he had been tortured, who had enjoyed his shame. He brushed though his hair. But he wasn't supposed to. The incident with Flint and Pucey and Hermione fighting him over it should have shown him that he was supposed to become like the dorky Gryffindors, who only thought of others and how to sacrifice themselves. Urgh.

Perhaps there was a middle way. Perhaps he could just abstain from harming others and wishing them the worst but not sacrifice himself? Yes. That seemed the way to go. He would have to bite his tongue quite often but that was a minor sacrifice. Granger was indulgent. She wouldn't expect him to change overnight, wouldn't she? No, she was reasonable.

Because love aside, if this was the way he was going to repay her, harming others when she had prevented him from the very thing, she would leave him, for sure. And so, he couldn't. It made him a little angry though, to not be able to avenge himself to his tormentors. He wiped his face, only to look at her anxious expression.

"We are going to show them, Draco, the stuff you are made of. And it's not what they think, whoever _they_ are. You are so much more. Please, Draco."

And there was that element of constant and exaggerated expectations again. Just like his father. Why couldn't people just take him for what he was? "Stop saying that, Granger. What am I more? What am I more but a pureblooded hypocrite, a show-off who surrounds himself with his like and his money?" he mumbled dejectedly. Why couldn't he just be? Just live in the Manor and enjoy the luxuries of life with nobody coming to any harm? No, he had to redeem himself and he had to work for it. It was one thing to show willingness to behave in a way, so Granger would trust him. But working hard? Who'd ever heard of a Malfoy working for anything?

Hermione snorted incredulously. "Do you really need me to answer that, Draco?"

He frowned at the ceiling. "If I have a debt to pay, it means I've done something wrong, and I couldn't agree more. But how come I get a chance to make up for it? How come I get a chance to keep the girl and be happy and make up for my mistakes? Why can't I just hide in the Manor until the grass has grown over the entire issue?"

Hermione tilted her head. "Draco, I'm not God, I don't know. But perhaps it's just a side effect?"

Her words made him look at her sceptically. "Side effect?"

Hermione shrugged. "Yes. Our work, the work of the compow is too important. And perhaps only we two can do it, as Harry said. So, we would have to adjunct anyway and despite your debt, you get the chance to make up for it, because only you, and I, can do this work. And you can't hide and sit it out because only you have the ability to do it."

"Hm," he mused, her words slowly sinking in. "What about the girl?"

Hermione grinned. "The girl needs you just as much as you need her, so, it's my reward, and that it feels so good, for both of us, is just a bonus. For the magic it's just important that we work it and that we got to know its full potential. Regardless of how we got there, I believe. A positive side effect for us. A bonus, so to say."

He looked back over to her, a hand on his forehead, holding his bangs back. "Do you really think, at the end it will be evened out and I get a chance to simply be happy?"

"Yes," Hermione replied with vehemence. "This is so much more than just a magical connection or overcoming prejudices and healing a collective mind of magical folks and combining the dark side with the light or two unlikely people coming together to shag their brains out. It's all of it together. And only we can do it. We couldn't see it because we always only looked at one part at a time. And I always felt I was missing something. And you know how that's driving me nuts."

When Draco chortled over her own deprecation but still looked sceptical, she continued: "We create the compow. Draco, it comes through us. We are a powerful couple. Harry said, I was selected because I could, that I was one of very few who could, and he was right. So are you. I was selected because I can handle a huge amount of magic, much like you, the pureblood poster child, and much more than many a pureblood witch. Muggleborn or not, it seems I am powerful."

Draco snorted: "Of course you are. Only the best, remember?"

He tried to come to grip with Hermione's revelations. Deep in thought, he almost missed her next sentence because she said it so shyly and quietly.

"But it's hard to believe. And it still doesn't tell me why you would want me. The compow doesn't require us to become a love couple. I wondered what you wanted with me boring bookworm when you could have every woman you wanted."

When he didn't answer and just scrutinized her with his piercing glance, she continued pouring her heart out.

"I just couldn't believe that you could really fall for me. I mean, you are Draco Malfoy, handsome, loaded, smooth, an excellent lover; you can have every woman you want. What do you want with me? And so I thought, it had to be the magic and when or if it vanishes, I'd be left with your cruel laugh and rejection. And I had enough of that for a lifetime," she admitted quietly.

He held her gaze for a long minute before answering. "Well, for one, I like books as much as you do, you know that. Just because I never let it be known doesn't mean I never read. And I may be able to get any woman I want because of my name and my riches, Hermione, and yes, maybe for my looks, but only for a fuck. Not because they like me so much. And I may be skilled but that doesn't mean they were interesting to me. And I may be charming if I want to be, to get into their pants, but that was all they ever were to me. Fucks or consorts. Hanger-ons to my name and galleons. Out for a good time, spending money, and for my reputation to give them a good fuck. Or to marry me, so they can exploit me more. They didn't care a jota for my feelings. Do you have any idea how that even feels? To never be wanted for who you are, your own resources, your magical skill, your intellect, your humour, for fucks sake, for the guy you are, not the moneybag and the master fucker?"

Hermione blanched over his crudeness, but she understood that she had hit a nerve. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply …"

He cut her off harshly. "I know you didn't. I'm not angry at you. I just want you to understand what you mean to me. You are with me, despite my name and reputation. You don't care for my money, or so I hope, since you hung out with the weasel who has absolutely nothing, and with Potter before you knew he inherited from his parents. And you know me. You know the magic I wield because you share it. You know my magical essence. You are so connected to me that I feel it in my bones when you're absent. If you laugh at my jokes, I know they must have been really funny, because you wouldn't do it just to please me. Every stupid idea I have, you shoot down, and if I have good ideas, you are able to appreciate them. Your honesty is priceless. When I say something, I know that you understand it and can work it. If you ever …," he swallowed, because he couldn't finish this sentence in the same air. It clenched his heart, uncomfortably. "If you ever want to leave, you're taking half of me with you. You are my equal, my other half. I can't …" he looked down, trying to find the words. "I can't even imagine what it would be like. I just know it would hurt more than a Cruciatus. And you know that kind of pain."

Hermione had gazed at him the entire time softly. Merlin, Godric AND Salazar, he did love her. How could she have not seen it? The heat in her heart from his words was enough to light a fire.

He went on. "You know my magic. You know my body and how it reacts to yours. And soon, you will know me. You already know that I'm not the same bullying, shallow boy you knew from school. But give it more time. Give me more time. I'll get you your butterflies." He clenched his jaw in determination at his last words.

That last comment stopped her short. He would get her butterflies, meaning he would try hard to earn her trust. Was that what she wanted? With butterflies, she had also meant the tingling, the delicious anticipation of being with, of expecting the partner. She wanted to fall in love properly. Dating, giving in to desire, being overcome by emotions, crying when saying good-bye, not wanting to let go. They had already jumped several steps on the way to falling in love and it had bothered her.

Not knowing how to phrase her hesitation properly, she whispered: "I just wanted to fall in love on my own."

Draco was silent for a minute. Then he asked: "What about it do you want to do on your own?"

Hermione huffed. "I wanted to be drawn to a man I find interesting. I wanted to feel this initial tingling of imagining being with him. I wanted to experience the slow steps of approach, of trying the compatibility, of only going the last step when one is sure that it's right."

Draco looked amused. "And what exactly did you not experience with me? Falling in love, actually falling is new for me as well, so I paid attention, and I had every step on your list on my way. Still do, in fact."

Hermione was stumped. Did they actually go through all the classical steps of falling in love without her noticing? Why hadn't she noticed? Because of the magic overshadowing it. But she knew what the magic was about. She did now.

"But … but… we went about it the wrong way. We gave in to our desires before the tingling. Before we could realize what we had." She tried to find excuses for her hesitations.

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Well, it tingled for me, when your magic touched mine the first time. After that one kiss in the training room. I've never felt anything like it. It all became very confusing after that, admittedly, but I had plenty of tingling and clenching heart and stomach before you jumped me in your foyer and I couldn't resist going all the way with you."

When she remained silent, trying to sort her thoughts, he went on.

"Isn't this what love is, Granger? The voluntary sharing of your body, mind and soul? Or in our case, magic? And whether I like it or not, you are constantly there. I had you under my skin while I was still despising you for being a muggleborn."

Draco was almost pleading. He was pouring out all he ever felt about her for her to judge and sort through. He was going to support and carry her for the rest of their lives if she so wished, but he had to make sure that this was what she wanted. Hermione realized what he did and her mouth went dry. Draco, the Draco Malfoy, was giving himself over.

"I knew you would be a part of my life. From the very first time I opposed you, I felt it. Most likely as a constant reminder of what I shouldn't want, a tease for what I couldn't have, as Weasley's wife, flaunting in my face that he could have you and waste your tremendous brain for making him meals and bear and raise his children. What a waste it would have been." He sneered.

"But the more we worked together, the more I got to know you, the more I knew I couldn't leave you to Weasley. Or anybody else for that matter. And when you accepted me after your discharge from St. Mungo's, I knew I was yours. I tried to convince myself in Malfoy fashion, that no, you were mine, not the other way round, but it was no use. As if you'd cast a spell over me, and I know you didn't," he took her objection out of her opening mouth before she could say it, "I was captured. The funny thing is I didn't even want to escape."

He lowered his glance to her lips. "Thinking that Theo, or any other wizard, could have a claim on you drove me near to nuts. I had to do something. And when your magic swamped me, the night after Potter's dinner party, I knew I was a goner for good. That I would have to convince you to keep me, when you didn't feel the same way, because I couldn't leave anymore. This abundance of feelings flooding me with your magic, it was more than I could have ever wanted. It ignited every numb cell in my body and negated all the blackness of the dark magic I've ever felt. There couldn't be anything above and beyond. It would explode a human being. It was a close call already."

He stroked softly over her cheek. "I give you credit for not fully knowing what you did. You couldn't have foreseen what it did to me, your acceptance. But it's your responsibility now. Now, that you've done it and I feel all this, all this love," his expression was a mix between disgust, awe and incredulity, "you can't take it away from me."

His thumb stroked over her lips. "I am not a strong person compared to your Gryffindor standards. I have my strengths, but they don't count on your Gryffindor scales. When it comes to emotions, I'm utterly useless. I've been strong enough to stay away from excessive emotions, because you can't be with Voldemort if you show them. They turn it against you and it destroys you immediately. But now that I've tasted them with you, I can't fight them down again. It would be incredibly cruel to take them away. And you are many things, powerful, ruthless if you want something, determined, fierce, but not cruel. Do you want to be cruel to me, Granger, and ask me to withdraw them? Not that I didn't deserve it, after the years of bullying you. But are you going to repay me in kind?"

Hermione had followed him with utmost attention. She ignored the fact that Draco's last statement contained a discrepancy. Either she was cruel or she wasn't. When he claimed she wasn't, then she couldn't be acting cruel. It didn't make sense. But so many things didn't make sense in the after-war, or even during and before the war. So, who was counting?

What did strike her about his speech was that he had attributed to her that she had changed him. Something she had done had changed him; even if she hadn't known exactly what she did and how it would affect him.

"I did that?" she said.

He nodded. "Yes, you did. You made me feel all this. I'm sure you didn't know what you were doing, which would be such a typical Gryffindor thing to do: charge in and do things and not consider the consequences entirely."

So, however she turned it: Draco Malfoy fell in love with her because of something she did and was. Despite her muggleborness. And not through a magical influence. That was all she wanted.

"If I was able to do that without even knowing, you are one weakly piece of human being, aren't you?"

Draco saw the frown dissipating on her forehead. That was the best sign that she had come to a conclusion, and he was going to bet the rest of his meagre fortune that it was a favourable one. He smirked. "Not disagreeing with you there. So, fix it."

Hermione frowned again. "Why do I have to fix it?"

Draco smirked some more. "Because you can, Hermione. Remember what Potter said? You are one of very few who have the ability. "

Hermione huffed again. "I still find that hard to believe, especially in sight of my very recent failures to catch up."

He shook his head. "Granger, even the strongest person has the right to take a time out. It's important to recover your strength after a while. For a self-righteous Gryffindor who went to defeat the Dark Lord with Potter you have abysmally low self-esteem."

Hermione looked down. "Yeah, well, being taunted for my parentage all through school didn't much lend itself to a high belief in my abilities. Why do you think I always worked so hard?"

Draco met her glance with contempt. "You have got to be joking. If this is supposed to make me feel better, you are failing grandly." He ignored her wince. It was best if she overcame her fear of failures. He would point them out to her until she became immune against them. "Now, I'm feeling guilty on top of it. I can't believe that you took our crap to heart, about you being a muggleborn. Did you ever think we might have been just confused, because what our parents told us were obvious lies? You were the living and walking proof of these lies. Blast, Granger, brightest witch my arse, how bright can you be, if you don't belief in yourself? Would you have been paired with me, if you weren't the best? I would have refused to adjunct with you if you weren't." He growled.

Hermione looked sheepish. "Well, I knew I was doing alright …"

"Doing alright?" Draco looked like a fire breathing dragon, once again. Then he shook himself. "You know what, Hermione? I can't take much more of your self-dubious chatter. But I know I can always shut you up with a well-placed kiss. In fact, I feel quite justified to do it pre-emptively, right now, before you talk yourself into any more rubbish doubts."

Turning her face to his, he pulled her lips to his mouth and felt them curling into a smile at the contact. He felt hungry. Hungry for this small bundle of muscles and soft pliable skin, with which Granger captured his essence through minimal movements. Next to his new favourite position, this greedy pulling of her lips on his made him light-headed. It felt like soaring through the skies on his broom, and that was almost better than sex.

He greeted the electrical zing that shot through his mouth. It was always this way when he kissed Hermione Granger. The tingle in his mouth was so intense that he automatically lifted his tongue and it slid across the split of her lips, which opened and send her tip of the tongue for a greeting.

Something around his heart clenched when he smoothed his lips against hers, nipping, rubbing, licking, soothing; it felt full to bursting. Draco wasn't quite sure if this was an entirely comfortable feeling in his heart but for some reason he wanted to give into it. He wanted to feel where it led to, when this clenching burst and filled his body with tingling. Tingling over kissing Hermione Granger. Was this what she meant with butterflies?

He pulled her closer yet, to intensify the pressure of his lips against her and her body against his planes, and heard her whimper, spurring his loins again. If only he didn't need more air. When dark spots popped up before his inner eye, he let go, resting his forehead against her, and panted against her chin.

Hermione Granger was in heaven. She thought: 'By Merlin and Godric, I am kissing, really kissing Draco Malfoy. This is not a meaningless snog, not a quick passionate moment, this is a deliberate intimate soul opening moment and I'm having it with Draco Malfoy. Not with Ron, not with Harry, not with any Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, who would be in my league, not with a bloody Hufflepuff, but with the silver Slytherin Prince Draco Malfoy. Life sure is funny. I'm just hoping that the post-war wizarding world appreciates a bit of humour.'

Enjoying his tongue sliding silkily over hers and his virile body looming over, Hermione's working half of the brain delved on the connection factor. Her hands on his smooth skin, stroking up and down his waist and on his back, feeling him shudder in delight every time her thumb went over a certain spot on his front, she let her magic slide and stretch into his, connecting every dot and enjoying their connection that felt soul deep. Draco had said it: she knew him inside out. And through the magic, she would always have at least an inkling of his intentions.

They were connected through their shared magic, their magical essence; their physical connection was out of this world good, here Hermione shuddered a bit, and now, with the pressure taken off, her emotions were able to catch up, where his had long gone before.

Lost in the kiss and her thoughts, Hermione found Draco grinning down at her when she opened her eyes after she had realized that he had stopped kissing her.

"So, can I take you out to dinner tomorrow? Will you be able to sit through a meal when other people in the room are second-guessing your emotional involvement with Draco Malfoy?"

She responded piqued. "That may be a little prematurely. How can I stand up for emotional involvement when I am only just exploring it? I can't just lie to everybody and say I'm in love with you."

Draco rolled his eyes. "The only person you would be lying to would be yourself, Hermione. And you are pretty good at it. Everybody else has already seen it. You are the only one who's not believing it."

Hermione frowned. "That can't be right, I'm a terrible liar."

Draco chuckled. "Don't kid yourself, Hermione. If you want, you can be a pretty convincing liar. It makes perfect sense: everybody believes you to be so superior in knowledge; if you blurted upset lies, everybody would believe you."

Hermione's frown deepened. "You're saying I'm betraying myself with regards to my feelings to you?"

Draco grinned some more. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

"And why would I do that?" Hermione huffed.

Draco answered with a levelled face. "Because you don't have enough evidence to trust me. Because you don't trust yourself on this. Because you're scared. Either one of these reasons or all of them and it's all normal. But let me ask you something: if you had the chance to undo all we've done together, the night in the classroom, the adjunction, exchanging the magic, exchanging … intimacy, would you want to? Would you want to go back to me being the old Malfoy on the other side and you steadily on Harry Potter's side and partner of Ron Weasley?"

Hermione considered his face for a moment, and then shook her head in silent decline.

Malfoy nodded. He had expected her answer because he, like her closest friends, knew where she stood. "Why not?"

"Because those lines were right to cross," she spoke deliberately.

He stroked her cheek and her lips with his thumb. "And I'll be forever grateful that you did, but again: why?"

She said: "Because I had to do it for myself. These line crossings were important for me."

He nodded understandingly but by his expecting eyes he was waiting for more. Hermione finished her thought. "To create my own legacy. To be somebody else but Harry's sidekick and brain behind his undertaking."

Again Draco nodded but waited. Hermione focused on his clear eyes and felt the truth drawn out of her. "I lied to myself that I was in love with Ron because it was so much easier. Because everybody expected it and it made so much sense, …" she ventured.

"And?"

"And because my real object of interest was beyond reach forever and never gave an indication that he was interested at all."

Draco nodded for the last time. "I couldn't. You know I couldn't," he pressed out before he pulled her body tight against his own.

The tears flowing silently into his shoulder, Hermione whimpered: "I can't go back. Even if I wanted, I couldn't go back. Some lines cannot be undone, they have to remain crossed."

Holding her head in her hair behind her back, Draco whispered back in her ear: "I know, Hermione. I know. And I'm glad."

"Why are you glad?" she sniffled.

"Because I couldn't go back either. With every fibre of me I want this line remain crossed."

Hermione sniffled quietly for a minute. Then she asked: "How did you know I was lying to myself?"

Draco snorted. "I'm a master liar. I know a lie when I see it. I knew it ever since you sent your Patronus to save me. And it was a dragon." He shook his head in amusement.

Hermione smiled through her tears. "And when did you stop lying?"

He looked down. "When I wanted you to stop lying to yourself about me. I thought somebody had to stop with the lying. Why not I?"

Realizing the enormous effort Draco was exerting on her behalf, Hermione couldn't help herself. She pulled him close.

"Thank you for waiting so patiently," Hermione spoke against his lips.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Not so patient. But I didn't have much choice, didn't I? If I wanted you, selfishly, than I had to wait for you to master all these conflicting things in your head. Do you think we can speed up the process in the future?"

Hermione laughed. "You are more than welcome to try."

His eyes narrowed dangerously, but his mouth still smirked. "Oh, I will, make no mistake. This was excruciating, I don't care to repeat it."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "What can I ever do to make up for it?"

He smirked knowingly. "I can think of something."

Draco pulled her closer, fitting her body into the curves of his, and wriggled his lower abdomen against hers. The glint in her eyes showed him not only that she understood his innuendo but welcomed it as well.

But although he was pressing her pelvis against his awakening appendage and felt the heat coming from her body, he saw her rapid mind working, distracting her.

Draco pulled back and captured her gaze with his stone cutting glance.

He didn't need to ask anything. "How are we going to tell the world?" she volunteered to his gaze. Despite her realization, their problems still remained. She knew that Draco was IT for her but how to explain it to people like Lavender and Parvati, who didn't see the side of him she saw and who didn't understand? Her deliberation must have affected her kissing enthusiasm.

He wasn't offended. His piercing gaze softened a bit. "Well, the best way is to make them suggest it."

Hermione looked incredulously at her lover. "How would they ever think that the Golden girl would be good together with the Slytherin Prince?"

He kissed her lips softly. "If they create something incredible together, of course."

She mused. "So, we'll keep it a secret, until we have first results."

"I don't mind going home to the Manor, only to be flooing or apparating back to you the minute I get there." He worked his way over around her mouth, over her chin, to her throat.

"So, we work, we leave, separately, until, hmmmm," she moaned at a particular nip, "until we have results. And when we present them, we can be affectionate and sow the seeds of our closeness in their minds."

"You should have been in Slytherin after all," he grinned, when he came back to look at her.

Opening her eyes, she stared into his grey ones, and smiling, answered: "Let's do it, Draco."

With a frown he clarified: "Let's do what?"

Hermione stroked two fingers over the fold in his forehead tenderly, and replied: "Let's go look for the counters."

His glance darkened the tiniest bit and he licked his lips nervously. "What, now?"

Wriggling comfortably under the warm cover of his larger body, she said: "Yes, now. What else do we need but our bodies and our magic?"

When he still looked sceptic, she added: "Didn't you have a vision as well, the same way I did?"

At his nod, she continued: "And you saw the counters?"

When he nodded again, she pulled him down to the level of their energy, holding him in a net spun of her pure red magic.

"Show me," she whispered against his lips, distracting him from the tingling feeling of her magic on his with the tingling of her lips. "Show me what you saw."

Ripping his thoughts away from Hermione's warm and delectable body under his larger one, he hovered for a bit, not knowing how to go about it. When he felt her hand stroking his cheek and her magic rubbing up against his at the same time, he took a deep breath and tried to remember what he had seen, the matrix of pure energy that made a spell.

Hermione watched as the compow came forward and displayed like a 3D picture a construct that reminded her remotely of a molecule model with stick and balls.

"Oh, my, Draco, it's magnificent. Which part means what?" she couldn't help exclaiming.

Guiding her slowly, as if taking her by an energetic hand, he led her around the reconstruction of the spell he had seen in his recent climax, Draco assumed it was the Cruciatus, to show Hermione the nucleus part the compow had pointed out to him; the one which needed to be changed.

And there it was: the spell consisted of three parts; a red part that effected the spell, a yellow part that stabilized it against other magic and a pitch black part, the nucleus, that pulled the energy to give the spell its power. Hermione let her magic explore each part. She prodded them, lightened them up separately and let the compow take an impression. Draco was with her at all times. Hermione saw his blue magic shining through her red one, intertwining, mixing with hers and the compow's, above and below, in front and behind, over and under, brilliant glistening of life power. A firework of pureness. Because magic itself wasn't dark or light. The direction came from the caster.

And working their magics side by side it felt as if Draco was guiding her hands with his focus from behind her back, embracing, and she supporting his exploration with both hands on his shoulders, lending him her strength at the same time.

Watching the compow linger around the almost lightless dark part, Hermione murmured: "This is the part that channels the dark magic, isn't it?"

She registered Draco's dejected nod but already thought further: "The compow could simply neutralize and dissolve this spell. But that is only something the compow can do and we have to find a way to put parts of a spell together, so that it would do the exact opposite of the Cruciatus, for example."

"We'll have to work on the copy the compow gave us and research and try what parts create the opposite. Blimey, that will take some real work," Draco murmured annoyed.

With a squeal and a gasp, Hermione surfaced from their energy level and searched his grey eyes. When she found the slightly annoyed and disgusted look which was so typical for Draco, she captured his face in both hands and threw herself at Draco, toppling him on his back.

"Merlin, Draco, this is bloody fantastic." Showering his face with kisses, she kept talking: "You are the most amazing," kiss, "fantastic," kiss, "wonderful," kiss "wizard of all times. We will create counter curses to the Unforgivables." She squealed again.

Being beamed at, praised and smothered in kisses by Hermione Granger, who glowed in honest delight over the magical creation they were going to undertake, Draco couldn't help but be infected by Hermione's giddiness. The smile that spread over his face in response made him feel muscles he had never used before, truly. It felt as good as stretching after a good night's sleep.

"Granger. Granger, gerroff me," he tried to keep up the pretence of fighting her off but didn't put in much effort. "I'm not a cuddly plush animal."

Hermione kept kissing without deterrence, but planned their work in her mind at the same time. Draco would have been surprised if she hadn't.

"When we have reconstructed the spell's opposite, we have to test it on something. Some living thing. Oh, I know, Moody used spiders. Well, the impostor Moody. But spiders are good. Ron hates spiders. Where … oh, I know, there are some in the attic of this building."

Jumping up, she said, "I'll go get them."

Fortunately, Draco was a quick recover, even though he was thoroughly roughed up and breathless by Hermione's enthusiastic kisses and her praises of his abilities.

"Granger, wait," he shouted after her.

Halfway to the door, Hermione stopped and turned playfully, exposing her entire breath taking naked body. Draco had a hard time keeping his thoughts straight and getting his words out, because the view constructed his throat.

"Whatever can be the problem?" Hermione exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips.

Draco smirked despite the tightness of his throat. "You may want to put some clothes on before you run through your house stark naked," he said hoarsely.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "How unnecessary. It's quite dark, the corridors are deserted, I can disguise myself magically, plus, there is a nice bachelor living on the third floor, who may want to take a peek at me."

Draco face drew into a dark mask in an instant. "Over my dead body," he growled, sitting up.

Hermione turned teasingly. "In the next life, then," and went to leave the room with swaying hips, still stark naked, her mass of hair swinging from side to side. Draco felt his groin twitch at the enticing view she offered. He would have never guessed that Potter's bookworm was able to swing her hips like this and not look entirely out of place. But then, he would have never believed he could fall in love with her, either. Now, she was his and he would have to prevent other men from seeing her. Naked, that was.

Draco jumped out of bed and was at her side before she had passed the doorframe. He whirled her around and framed her in his arms against the wall.

Hermione was delighted to have Draco growl furiously in her face: "There is no need to tease me. I'm already at your beck and call. And whatever has this poor bachelor done to you that you want to torture him so much? Because he will never touch you, are we clear on that?"

She smirked. "Are you jealous, Draco?"

He clenched his jaw. "I don't like to share. It comes with the Malfoy territory."

When she pulled him close to give him a smouldering kiss, he took it and spoke in a break: "Come back to bed. It's late. You can search for your spiders tomorrow."

Taking her waist, he pulled her back until they were snuggled again under the covers. In all excitement, Hermione couldn't resist to dive down once again to watch the matrix of the spell Draco had shown her. An exhilarated tingling spread through her body.

She felt Draco's hand on her stomach and heard his voice in her ear almost at the same time: "Does it turn you on?"

"Yes," she whispered, excited, impatient to get to work on creating new spells. But she felt her excitement shift to the enticing male essence next to her. It seemed to go all hand in hand, the excitement over new magical discoveries and the arousal because of the male beside her. Hermione started to understand that this also was intermingled and she would have to learn how to differentiate, which was arousal and which was creative energy. Or at the very least make time for each separately. Or in the worst case scenario (if they weren't able to separate the two) they would have to work from home. No way was she going to be caught shagging in the ministry. Draco was sure to find amusement in the situation but she would die of embarrassment. Hermione was warming up to the idea to work from home.

Blushing Hermione realized that despite the fact that her attraction to Draco Malfoy was going to get her into precarious situations, another puzzle piece clicked into place: why it was right to work and be with Draco Malfoy. They had always been attracted to each other and now they were going to take this pure energy, this universal draw to create life, and turn it into life changing spells. Life preserving spells. It was all about life affirmation, the very thing Voldemort had not understood. If they had to keep shagging their brains out to get there, then so be it. Hermione was ready.

"I can't wait to get started. But I'm more turned on by your naked closeness."

"Yes," he snickered. "Me, too."

Draco admonished her playfully after a minute: "You could have told me."

"No, I couldn't. It would have defeated the purpose." Hermione picked up what he was talking about without further explanation, smirking.

"You could have hinted at it," he grumbled.

"No." Hermione shook her head. "I had enough of acting the part."

Eyeing her lips, he said: "So, you wanted a man, not only acting, but being a man?"

She mused for a moment, staring at his lips in turn, before answering. "I want a man who knows what he's doing, takes what he wants and does not cower before my bossiness and my indecisiveness."

"Hmm," Draco hummed. "Did you get what you wanted?"

She wriggled against him and put her hands on his hips. "Oh, yes."

He grinned. "So, all you want is to be put up against a wall or bent over a desk or pushed down on the bed every once in a while?"

She blushed. "Sounds lovely."

He chuckled. "How is it different, now that I know? How am I not acting it?"

She mused. "Because you did it in the first place. You were angry and took me, without hurting me, of course, and I know you can do it again. It's authentic. Even without the anger."

Draco couldn't help his grin. "Ah, so make-up or angry sex is your thing, hm?"

Hermione smacked her lips. "Remember the part I said about variation?"

He chuckled again. "Certainly."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well."

Draco smirked and couldn't resist the temptation to paint a few scenarios for her. "So, if I took you out to dinner, and pulled you in the coat room, on your way back from the bathroom, and shagged you against a coat rack; that would be your kind of thing, right?"

Hermione rolled her eyes in delight. "Keep talking."

Chuckling to himself, he continued. This witch was more and more to his liking. He should have known that Hermione Granger had deeper resources than she showed normally. "If I blinded you with an _Obscuro_, and left you naked in the dungeon of Malfoy Manor without your wand and took you against a cold dungeon wall, would that be your kind of thing?"

She shivered. "It would definitely be worth thinking about."

He groaned, in delightful anticipation, and at her hint about thinking. "Oh, no. No thinking."

She shut her mouth with a snap.

He whispered against her ear. "If I went down on you and slurped up your salty caramel taste, will you come in my face?"

Her eyes went wide and she blushed charmingly. Draco felt his heart skip a beat. "Draco. Already again?"

He kissed her soothingly. He liked how she said his first name. Naturally, as if it belonged to her. He liked it a lot. "Hypothetically. Since you are all for scientific research."

Hermione looked down to his chest. "You know that I will. With your hot, silky tongue on the right parts, I can't help it."

Draco was a bit taken aback. He had not expected her to speak out loud what it did to her.

"Am I turning you into a dirty talker?" he queried with a quirked eyebrow.

She blushed again. "I wouldn't go that far. But since we will keep doing this together, I figure I should be able to speak about it. Without blushing, that is." Her blushing went deeper, defying her words, but she tried to hold eye contact.

He considered her quietly for a long minute. When she squirmed under his gaze and averted her eyes in discomfort, he decided to relieve her from his impertinent stare. "We will keep doing this?"

She frowned. "Draco, don't be daft. We have this fantastical magic together, connecting us. It arouses us to work its fantastical power. Of course, we will keep doing this."

Seeing her gleaming eyes in her frown, Draco ventured forward. "Let me show you something."

Hermione turned to him expectantly. Once again, he moved his larger body over hers, between her legs and wriggled right in. Hermione hmm'd appreciatively, because it was simply an excellent feeling, and slung her legs around his back.

Draco grinned at her flushed face and burrowed his face in her neck and hair. "This, right this, is my favourite position. I don't need to come in you, I just need to be in you. Just my prick in your folds, resting until my arms give out. That's all I want."

Hermione snorted one laugh. And then another. And another. And then she started to giggle full out. Which was doing wonderful things to her intimate connection with Draco. His head came up again and he smirked at her laughing face.

"How about, when we come from our daily undertakings, we just strip, get on the bed and remain like this for the rest of the day?"

She calmed a little but laughter was still shaking her from time to time. "Will you be ready after a tiring day?" she grinned provocatively at her lover.

He grinned back. "As soon as you strip, I will be."

"That's all I can ask, I suppose," Hermione sighed.

He pressed one tender kiss on her lips and continued: "And when the mood strikes us, we'll take this further. And if not, we won't, I don't care, really. This is my nirvana." He wriggled in her, rubbing on her front wall and heating the sensitised area dangerously.

Hermione closed her eyes at the tempting feeling and took another deep breath. Draco laughed in response.

Her warm eyes were looking back. In their depths an uncharacteristic glint twinkled promising. "Am I getting to see any proof of nirvana?"

He grinned. "Witch."

"So I've been told," Hermione managed to say before his lips closed over hers.

While their mouths did their ritual routine of sucking and moving lips, dipping, licking and biting, they felt his erection coming up in her.

Draco choked. "Merlin, how do you do that? How do you get me up with just a kiss alone, ready to shag you to kingdom come?"

Hermione quirked an eyebrow. "I have no idea. But your favourite position could have something to do with it, don't you think? And shouldn't you want to shag less now, since you've given your excess energy to me?"

"Hm, you think?" He looked puzzled. "But I still want to shag. It feels different, though. Now, I only want to shag you. There will be a natural limit, dependent on how much of me you can take, but that's alright. I still have my hands and your mouth and … well, if all gives out, I can take a break. I'll miss my favourite position, but it's alright."

Hermione looked at him levelly. "Weeeell, I certainly hope you don't need to shag other witches besides me. Where in the world did the old Draco Malfoy go?"

He kissed her with a grin. "He got sucked into your womb." (_A/N: Literally! No kidding!)_

She snickered. "I take it, we will have a very physical relationship, won't we?"

He chuckled. "I suppose. The way you capture me, you can be certain that I will seek it frequently. And should I knock you up, then I will continue until it comes out."

Hermione frowned. "What do you mean, should you knock me up?"

He sobered immediately. Stroking her stomach, he said quietly: "I want you to have my children."

Her head came up with a jerk. "I beg your pardon?"

He captured her eyes solemnly. "I want you to bear the next Malfoy heir. Before I saw the vision of how spells are structured and where we have to engage to build the counters, I saw you with child, glowing. And I want to see it for real."

Wide-eyed, she asked stunned: "Are you asking me to marry you?"

He sighed. "I would but it's too early. We'll need to do some work first, for the world to see that it's alright. But …," he continued in reply to her falling face. No girl liked the feeling of being asked, only to realize that it wasn't really meant as a proposal. He took her chin between thumb and index finger for her to look at him. And even though he frowned, a light kiss assuaged her. "... make no mistake, I will ask you, when the time is right. And you will better say "Yes"."

She couldn't hide her beaming smile, even though she had objections. "But Draco, your pureblood traditions …"

"Will come to an end," he finished her sentence with a frown. "Either that, or the Malfoy line will die out. It was only a matter of time anyway, you know that. And we will change the face of magic. Pureblood breeding is a thing of the past. When we have shown the world what magic is about, you will be the new face: the hunger for exploration, the willingness to embrace all magical beings, affirmation of life and the responsible use of its power. You will revolutionize the Malfoy name."

With an indulgent smile, tears pricking her eyes, she said: "Pureblood breeding may be finished, but you will still be there. It won't be just my face. We are connecting old and new. It will be our faces together, pureblood and muggleborn combining their power. And in a few generations, our children's children will be purebloods again."

Frowning, he answered: "True. But they will hopefully have learned to find their partners and friends in all wizards and witches, and not only in a selective crowd."

"Let's hope," she laughed. Hope. There was hope. And it was so invigorating.

She directed her attention to her wizard's nuzzling and kissing her cheeks and chin but was distracted when he asked: "So, are we condemned to fuck our brains out for the wholesome connection it gives us?"

Hermione quirked an amused eyebrow at the blond young man, who was just greedily attacking her breasts. "I believe there are worse fates, don't you think?"

"Well, that depends on the perspective," he replied, switching between left and right back and forth because he couldn't decide which one was more delightful.

"And which one is yours?" Hermione moaned because he had just tweaked one nipple in the way that made her womb go haywire.

He came back up to kiss her lips. "Whichever one you let me take. Top or bottom, front or behind. I'm not picky."

She smacked him on the shoulder and received a snicker as reply. "Draco," she tried to scold him but her scowl was quickly replaced by a moan when her wizard attacked her lips and went to town with his freedom to snog Hermione Granger senseless. In all rights, as they had decided.

"So what exactly did my balance help with, if you are still the same prude?" Draco snickered.

Hermione huffed. "It helped my goody-two shoes persona. She needed a little of your willingness to shag and deeper insight into the workings of life. For example that you're bringing yourself out of whack when you're denying parts of yourself."

Draco smirked: "Seen your dark side, didn't you?"

Hermione chuckled. "I wouldn't call it "dark". Perhaps more experienced. I've seen the backside of things. For the balance, things can't only be black and white. There are millions of shades of grey. Shagging is just one of them."

"Grey? What kind of grey?"

She smirked. "A very light grey, like water flowing over lead crystal in a rocky creek bed. A colour I like very much. It's constantly changing, but calming. A good balance to my giddiness."

He played his smirk down when he said: "Oh, you know, being so properly balanced, shagging is not the most important thing anymore. Water over rocks, hm."

Hermione pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes when she replied: "Just wait until morning, when I want to wake you with a proper kiss and suck you to new form."

Draco's eyes widened expectantly. "I think I like the new Granger."

Hermione smiled. "I like her, too."

He smirked. "That's good. Maybe then, she'll stay for a bit."

She smirked right back. "I think she will."

Needless to say, that proper sleep was still a while off. But when they did try to go to sleep, Draco pulled Hermione's back against his front and inhaled their mixed scents. He smoothed his lips against her shoulder blade and went out like a light in the strong belief that everything would be right in the world. Peace. At last.

_A/N: I'm so sorry it took me so long. But being on vacation, believe it or not, does not contribute to concentrated working and to spin out your inspiration. Plus, I finally managed to take a look at the Hunger Games (movie on the plane and the books while vacationing) and it took me a few days to get Peeta and Katniss out of my head again. Especially since the Australian rain forest constantly reminded me of the second book._

_Maybe I should put Hermione and Draco in a jungle. Just to get it out of my head. Blast._

_Now, on to the Epilogue._


	45. Epilogue part 1

_A/N: Yay, nikki98 (Sorry, I thought she did come around. I'll have her say it out loud in this part. I had it in the last chapter but it went to the cutting floor for some reason. The dream I thought was cleared up. It was full of hints for them to find out what to do with the compow and that they needed to open their minds to a (loving) relationship for it to develop to its fullest potential. And I haven't forgotten about her parents ;-))), scv914, thank you, TempestDashon, welcome (and thanks for reminding me that Gwenny needs to reappear and your kind words. I'm glad there are some people who appreciate my excessive rambling.) Anon (I'll take you song recommendation.)_

_Australia was fantastic, thanks for asking everyone. It's just so difficult to think of something else when you're watching salt water crocodiles in the wild and snorkel over the Great Barrier Reef._

_And, hey, people: I'm still taking song recommendations. Due to my stress to finish this fic, although I should work, and hard, songs got a little lost. For the last chapter, I'll take "Invincible" by muse (thanks, Anon). And for this? Let's hear it for the fic._

**.**

**Epilogue (part 1)**

.

**Harry's POV:**

You may rightfully wonder why it took me so long to get back to my house, where Hermione and Draco Malfoy were discussing the interview and its implications on their lives. After the interview, I went to pick up Ginny at the Burrow and witnessed the ripping down of one Lavender Brown. Ron and she had slept in after the New Year's Party at the Leaky Cauldron, where we all had gone to. Ron had only seen the article at tea time. He ordered her out of bed and into the living room by Howler. Luckily, his parents were still out, visiting Bill and a newly expecting Fleur at the coast. I've never seen Ron so angry in all my life. He scared me. He shook the Daily Prophet, turned to page 3 the article was on, in her face.

"Lavender, what on earth…"

Lavender thought quickly. "But, Won-Won, she would have taken you from me. I saw you in the kitchen and how she embraced you. She wanted you back. I had to do something."

"Don't call me that stupid nick name. I already hated that in sixth year," Ron snarled in a way that would have made Malfoy proud. Lavender winced as if slapped with a wet towel. "What on earth makes you think, Hermione wanted me back, which she doesn't, in particularly not after we, you AND I, ribbed her so badly at the party?"

Lavender opened her mouth to answer but Ron didn't let her.

"What business of yours is it if Hermione comes with Malfoy anywhere? They work together. And apparently Hermione trusts him enough to bring him to Harry's house. So, you keep your nose out of her affairs, you hear me?" Ron blustered.

"But, Ron, she ..." Lavender started again in her whiniest voice and wasn't allowed to finish again.

"And what did you see in the kitchen? That I defended you to her? Even though you didn't deserve it because let's face it, you did goad her, as she so rightfully pointed out to me."

Lavender opened her mouth, but Ron didn't let anything come out. "And what else did you see? That I embraced her in all friendship because in the goodness of her heart she forgave us, because that's how Hermione is? Always there for others. And a propos: did you know that she saved you from Greyback finishing you off, the night of the final battle? Did you? You owe your life to her."

This triggered something in Lavender. She bit her lip and this time, she didn't even try to say to anything. And so Ron rambled on. "You worried she would take me from you? You took me from her," he barked at her. She winced again.

"But…" He didn't let her finish again.

"No but. Hermione was in love with me since third year. And all I did was trying to ignore it, because she was too good for me, and I could have never brought up the courage to ask her out. I was ashamed to be a Gryffindor when I couldn't even ask a girl out who had been my best friend for years. Until I couldn't hold it in anymore in the final battle when she kissed me."

When Lavender paled, he spat in her face: "When I snogged you after our win in sixth year, you were the easy choice. I was aware of it. You had been ogling me all year. And don't think I didn't know about your reputation. I thought you were all I deserved. Hermione was and is in an entirely different league."

"Mate," I tried to intervene before Ron in his anger destroyed things he would later be sorry for. "Why did you never say anything? I could have helped you."

Ron snorted. "And then what? Would that have made me more deserving of Hermione? Being helped out by Harry-the-hero-Freaking-Potter? Wasn't it enough to always be your sidekick?" Now it was my turn to flinch. I hadn't known Ron had felt that disadvantaged.

Ginny, who was also present, had yet to say a word, but a small smile played around her mouth as she watched the scene unfold. Ron continued more quietly after that, speaking to the room more than to one of us. "When I finally got together with Hermione last summer, I thought my life finally made sense. The war was won, we would recover, life was good." He glanced off into the distance with a dreamy face. But after only a second he came back to reality and his face morphed back to his angry mask.

"But it wasn't meant to be. She needed more than I could give. And that's not because she is so demanding but because she is what she is, and I can't give her what she needs. A challenge. I could never match up to her. And so, I couldn't stay with her and prevent her from finding a man who could give her all she deserves. I was shocked, of course, when it turned out to be Draco Malfoy of all people, but if this is what she wants and needs, than I will fight to my toenails to make it happen for her."

Here he turned to Lavender again and his face turned into a Malfoy-worthy sneer that made Lavender shrink into her nightgown as if it could protect her. "Which brings me back to you. You will not ruin this for her. You will publicly apologize to both Hermione and Malfoy. I don't care how you do it, but since Parvati is your good friend, I'm sure she can get an apology published in the Prophet for you. You will tell the public that your gossip was just that, dirty gossip and fabrication of your vivid imagination and dirty mind. You will go to Hermione and Malfoy and apologize to their face. Grovel appropriately while doing it."

That shook up Lavender's defiance. She wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing. She raised herself as much as she could to Ron's 6 ft 2 and barked back at him. "And why should I do that? It would embarrass me to no end and I've been enough embarrassed by Hermione Granger, always letting it hang out how much smarter she is, the golden Gryffindor Princess."

Ron spoke in a hiss that sounded more dangerous than if he had yelled at her. Lavender sensed the danger, too, because she shrunk back at bit. "It's not Hermione's fault that you are not as smart as she is. Hermione puts a lot of work into her smartness. She deserves to be the smartest, because she works the most. And you can have no idea how smart she really is, how deep her cleverness really goes. And how well-intended. Something you will never understand."

After a restorative breath, he continued, becoming increasingly louder. "And you will do all that, and embarrass yourself terribly in the process, because that will be the only way for you to retain any respect. And because I will make you regret it if you don't."

With blazing eyes, Lavender tried for the last time to save herself from utter defeat in the light of her stupidity to defame Hermione Granger. "Ah, you say you feel so low that I was the only one you would deserve. After all I gave you, your little fetish and your total inexperience in all things that concern women's pleasure. What makes you think I want to keep a boyfriend who thinks so little of himself, despite his help and association to Harry Potter?"

Ron eyed her as if he had found a squashed spider on his best shoe: with purest disgust. "I said, at the time, in sixth year, I felt I didn't deserve more. Times have changed, Lavender. Now, that I know you better and your disgusting tendency to dig out the dirt on unsuspecting people and put them in a wrong light to the public, you should rather think in terms of whether you deserve me."

Ron stepped up right into her face. "I like you, Lavender. I really do. And I like what we have together. But if you don't save Hermione from your own slander, I will bring you down. And I'm sure I will have helping hands, many helping hands." He didn't look over to Ginny and me, but it wasn't necessary. He was rightfully sure that he could hope for our help and everybody associated with us. Nobody maligned Hermione as long as I was still breathing.

"If you don't regain my respect with rectifying your own dirty gossip, then you don't deserve me. And I will make sure that everybody else will know what you maliciously did. I am Ronald Weasley, the famous sidekick of Harry Potter. I'm sure I have more clout than you. You will die as an old cat lady when I'm done with you, because nobody will ever look at you again. The wedding is off until further notice."

If Malfoy could freeze you with his cold piercing stare, it was nothing to Ron's ice blue glance that struck you to the bone because you'd never seen him so furious before. And even though Ron was known to blow a vessel frequently, you just didn't expect fury from him to such an extent. Ron had never shown such utter loathe to any living thing, not even the spiders in the Forbidden Forest, Aragog's gigantic descendants. I was dumbstruck. And a little afraid. And a little regretful that I might have possibly underestimated Ron.

Ginny took the regret from me. She stepped right in between Ron and Lavender still facing each other and stretched up to her more than one foot taller brother and slung her arms around his neck.

Pulling him down in a sisterly hug, she said: "I'm so proud to have you for my brother."

With a last angry glance back, Lavender made her way quietly out of the living room and out of the house.

.

Their interview had done the trick and distracted the public mind from their relationship, even though Parvati sneaked a sentence in her article about the tension in the air during the interview and that the world would have to expect big things from the Granger-Malfoy team. The owls attacked my house as soon as Hermione and Malfoy had left. In fact, a few of them had likely been sitting there for a while and we had been too busy to pay them any mind. The tenor of most of their messages was incredulity about the fact that Hermione Granger had been paired with a Death Eater to create uplift in the post-war wizarding world; by magic itself supposedly. Nobody was surprised about Hermione's role in it. Some were outright surprised that she hadn't found the counter curses already, with a brain of her size, but everybody was stumped that Draco Malfoy had to be there for it. And they wanted more details.

Hermione had given us permission to open the mail and toss or address them if they became too nasty. I saw Ginny sift through them with a frown, waiting for one she could actually write a nasty reply to, but none were really that bad. There were a few snide warnings not to trust Death Eater Malfoy but that was the worst. People seemed more ready for a miracle than expected.

There were many requests from wizard journalists for more details on their shared magic, offers of high sums of money for interviews with foreign wizard newspapers, and an official summons to the Improper Use of Magic office from Mafalda Hopkirk. Why Mafalda in particular would summon them, I couldn't imagine. I guessed they didn't really have an outlet for adjunctions at the Ministry and since Hermione's work with Malfoy had been handled very hush-hush from the official channels, by Kingsley and Robards and myself, they wanted an official update and shoved it in her lap.

Everybody focused on the adjunction and that was exactly what Hermione had wanted to achieve.

Hermione and Malfoy didn't surface for the next day, as Ginny had ordered them, but I informed Hermione per floo of her appointment at the Ministry. She asked for my company on that day, which I told her I would gladly provide.

.

_A/N: I wanted to make an official summons here, where Draco convinces the officials in the ministry of his sincerity and his feelings for Hermione, for her to have another reason to fall in love with him. But I couldn't wrap my head around it. And I wanted to give you something, get a part of the Epilogue out, so I have to arrange to write this piece later. Thus, what do you think we should do with Draco? Should he stand up for his relationship? Should he talk under Veritasserum and accidentally admit his love? Should he simply smooth talk the officials and have them swooning at his feet because of his brilliance (and Hermione with them)?_

_Give me a hint what you think is most appropriate and I'll see what I can make of it. Way, way down the road._

_Cheers_

.

**Harry cont'd:**

From what I saw in them and from what Hermione told me about their adjunction magic, it was what Dumbledore had always said. Love conquers all. Except it was even bigger. Life conquers all. Love was just a part of affirming life. Kinship, companionship, friendly exchange, affection, love, it was all about life affirmation. It was about the importance to support everything that preserves and promotes life, which is the exact opposite to what Voldemort promoted. How a spell like "Wingardium Leviosa" supports life, I couldn't tell you. But when I asked Hermione, she just rolled her eyes and shook her head. "In the grand scheme of things, Harry. Think bigger," she said. "If you can lift a rock of somebody and rescue the person being crushed by it, it's very life affirming, isn't it?"

I had to agree to that.

Hermione understood (and enjoyed) why she had such a physical relationship with Malfoy. I didn't come across them only once. I made it a habit of walking as loudly as I possibly could wherever I went, to warn them. It didn't matter if it was the library (Hermione's favourite), a kitchen, a tea room, their office (Malfoy's favourite), shower, the training room, the main lobby, even the male restroom once. I've learned a lot about kinky games just by walking in on them.

When I thought about it, it did make sense. Their physical unification was a reproduction of their energies working together, his intrusion into her and her reception of him: he anchored her, focused their energies, and she entrapped and transformed it.

Working and combining their respective magical energies, they worked the power of the compow. They didn't need to shag all the time but since it was the best reflection of the way their magic worked, I believe the power required to resist the urge was stronger than they could manage. My understanding was (hearing, no, over-hearing them, as accidental as it was) that it was mind-blowing for them every single time. And even though a huge amount of lusting after each other's arse was involved (even on Hermione's side), their connection was so much deeper. And irrevocable.

In the end, it didn't really matter if Hermione "wanted" to fall in love or not, even though she finally did. She fell for him with a sensational bang when she finally let go of her trepidations. And I was the proud recipient of the rare sight of seeing Malfoy smile, really smile, when it became clear that she had fallen for him. Because other than when Hermione wrapped him around her finger in her presence, he remained the same snarky git to everybody else.

So, their "acts" were as life-affirming as it gets. And I believe after the tumultuous time of coming together, they simply came to love it. Additionally, seeing them together, it was surprising how well they actually fit, personality wise. Hermione was perfect for taking the spite out of his remarks and he was perfect for dampening down her know-it-all tendencies. They balanced each other beautifully.

I didn't fully understand it until I really saw them working together. When they started creating the counter curses for the Unforgivables, they stood across from each other, and I knew by the way they closed their eyes, that they were "diving down" to their energy level. By the way their respective jaws clenched or eye lids twitched, I saw how concentrated they actually worked behind their serene façade. At one point, Hermione raised her hands, mentally working on their energy. That wasn't unusual, Hermione frequently worked with her hands in agitation. Astonishing was that Malfoy raised his hands as well and held onto hers. And she let him and smiled welcoming. After that sight, it was clear to me that they belonged. The trust and intimacy in that one gesture sealed the deal to me. Malfoy had revoked all his childhood lessons and touching Hermione was important to him, as much as it chagrined me after everything Hermione had endured from him. She had given him a chance and he had taken it.

Hermione explained to me why touch was so important. Apparently, the magic had matched them against each other starting with her slap in third year, putting them into each other's focus. Hermione was much distracted by Ron and me and our adventures, but Draco had his eye on her since then. Of course, he disguised it as loathing. And nobody in his right mind would have guessed that the Prince of Slytherin, son of the Dark Lords Death Eater right hand man had a soft spot for a mudblood. But even Hermione had to look at him when the friction from the magic swapped over and they fought in the hallways, and even though she never said anything explicitly, with hindsight, she had prevented Ron and me from going too hard against Malfoy and I was sure that he had been on her mind then. Coming to think back, I remembered that she had always studied viciously after an altercation with him. I had attributed it to the vicious insults we had received from him and her need to expand her knowledge to counter said insults, but with hindsight they may have been a means of distraction as well.

The way Hermione explained it to me, the magic would have required them to touch more frequently to adjust their compatibility and suitability for an adjunction, but that wasn't possible because of their circumstances, until their night in the classroom. But the magical urge to match these two against each other at least moved them constantly into each other's focus. The magic finally marked them that night and they got closer each time they came across each other, until they had reached the right compatibility and energy level for the adjunction when Hermione visited Malfoy in the hospital wing and refused to see him as an enemy. The compow was created with the great kabang that goes with an adjunction and sealed with their kiss the night of his warning, the night before Dumbledore's death.

Hermione spelled it out for me that adjunction magic develops in stages. She had already written copious amounts of notes regarding the subject of adjunctions. The inception comes first and another touch (or kiss) as confirmation seals the deal. Dependent on what kind of relationship the carriers develop, the power specifies its direction and the exact manifestation of the power does determine later, which was the reason why Ariadne Lovegood and Magda Figg never found out.

Hermione figured, their compow was meant to deal with dark magic from the beginning because of their alignments in the war, a necessary connection between sides. But what exactly they could do specified with his pull of her pain and her touch of his Dark Mark and manifested with their unification: to balance dark magic through creation. Because that's what happens when a man and a woman unite, they create new life. Well, ideally, in the grand scheme of things. However, if they had stayed work colleagues, they would have developed a less fantastic tool to fight and balance dark magic.

People came to realize one by one how fantastic their connection was. Hermione told me about her night out with Draco's friends. She had been biting her lips in nervousness until Pansy smirked at her with a one-sided grin.

.

"Relax, Granger, if you can capture Draco's attention, you're well worth it."

Blaise snorted. "That's the understatement of the year."

Pansy looked puzzled: "What is?"

Blaise snorted once more. "That she captures his attention. He's besotted, for crying out loud."

All Draco did was grin. Pansy's jaw dropped. "You're not even going to deny it?"

"Why would I?" Draco shrugged.

"To deny it?"

"Wasted breath," he said nonchalantly.

"Draco!"

"Pansy!"

"How … when ….why?"

Watching this friendly exchange, Hermione tried to smooth her forehead muscles with her fingers. She stroked over her face and turned to look at Draco sitting next to her. But the smile crept onto her face, no matter what she did, even half covering her face with her hands. To hear him admit that he was besotted with her did wonders to her self-esteem. She was however curious, how he would answer this.

Draco looked at his friend level. "I'd hazard a guess for the when: about the time when we managed to move our magic and the compow over each other. I didn't realize it until after Potter's party, though. How: if I knew I would have solved one of universe's mysteries and be rich if I wrote a book about it. Oh, wait – I'm rich already. Never mind. Why – get back to my answer to How." He shrugged. "I just did."

"But … but… there must have been a point where you realized that you had fallen for good. When was that?" Pansy nagged. Getting the dish on something was her favourite pastime.

"Not that it's any of your business, Pansy, even as my friend, but there were a few times when Granger overwhelmed me with her magic and I realized that I enjoyed that feeling very much."

Blaise scrutinized his friend. "Overwhelmed you? As in overtook you? She's stronger than you?"

Draco nodded. "You saw what she did New Year's. I'd say she is."

Hermione intervened. "I don't think so. The whole point of adjunction is that the carriers are equal in strength. If through the equalising leading up the adjunction or from the beginning doesn't matter really, but being equal is important in the whole set up."

Draco frowned. "Then I pulled you down through the equalisation. It's probably not noticeable now, because of the extra strength, but there is no way that I could have been stronger than you before the adjunction."

Hermione frowned as well. "How can you say that? I'm just a muggleborn who luckily received magical powers, despite my long lines of muggle ancestors. You on the other hand have an incredibly long line of increasingly stronger magical ancestors. That would have to count for something."

"That's bull, Granger, and you know it. What does pureblood breeding have to do with it? You know that we were even weakening our magical potential with pureblood intermarriages."

"That's a different mechanism. Alright, I'll give you that you maintained your magical strength despite the pureblood breeding but there's no way that I lowly mudblood could have been stronger than you," Hermione said exasperated largely across the table. When she looked at the blond man sitting next to her, she was startled by his darkened face.

"Hermione …," he growled.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Draco" Hermione snarled, throwing her hands up. "Death Eater, a terrible, terrible Death Eater you are."

His frown stayed for another few seconds but when he took in the exasperated expression of Hermione's face and the shocked expressions of his friends face, he had to laugh.

"Good girl," he laughed and pulled an eye-rolling Hermione in for a kiss. After a reluctant beginning, she gave in to the temptation and kissed him back. The kiss quickly passed on into the steaming realm.

When they had to do a short break for breathing purposes, Draco panted: "You have to stop doing this, Granger, or we have to leave."

Hermione grinned. "The coat room or going home?"

With dangerously glinting eyes, Draco growled: "Both."

She looked back innocently, the teasing glint barely showing. "But we only just got here. They are your friends."

Draco growled. "They've known me all my life. They can do without me for an afternoon. But I can't sit comfortably."

She snickered and kissed him again for a long minute, more innocently. When they came up again, they exchanged one smouldering look and with a nod turned to a flummoxed Pansy and Blaise.

When his two friends didn't make any effort to rein their faces further in from incredulity, a very unusual feat for Slytherins, Draco's face, shining from another heart stopping kiss from his "girlfriend", fell to a dark frown. All their kisses were heart stopping now, even when it looked innocent to an outsider. It was almost an occupational hazard to be working with Hermione Granger. He would complain to the minister, if he wasn't sure that Kingsley Shacklebolt would throw him out of his office should he ever go there.

Well, perhaps he could change that, when his work with Hermione showed spectacular results. If. No, when.

"Mate, .." Blaise started out levelly. "Who are you and what did you do with Hermione Granger? The hot kissing woman next to you may look like her, but, man, not possible."

"And what did you do with the Draco Malfoy we knew, for that matter?" Pansy added. "Because the Draco Malfoy of old would have never kissed a mudblood. Heck, he would have never kissed any woman like this. And in public."

Hermione caught his arm just in time before Draco could draw his wand on his best female friend. She tried to turn his face to her while he glared at Pansy. He let her pull him reluctantly, pressing "Pansy, don't …" out between clenched teeth.

Speaking over his turned head, a firm grip on his jaw, Hermione addressed Pansy: "Pansy, you better apologize. Draco doesn't like it, if anybody but he calls me that. And given that we are both here, I'd rather he not blew you out of the room in rage. You know, quadruple spell strength."

Pansy nodded reluctantly. "Oookay. Sorry, Draco."

"Want me to say it again, as a counterbalance?" Hermione asked with another eye-roll.

"Please," Draco growled.

She let go of his face but left her arm around his neck and spoke right against his lips: "Death Eater, you are such a terrible Death Eater. I tremble, I shiver in fright, you horrible man."

It was impossible to say who cracked up first. But both she and Draco broke out laughing so loud that it attracted other people's attention. When all they saw was a hysterically laughing couple, they indulgently shook their heads and turned away again. Young love. And here they were kissing again. Hach.

Pansy snuggled into Blaise, watching her friend enjoy himself so much with his woman. "They fit well, don't they?"

Blaise, slightly distracted, put his arms around her shoulders and said: "Yeah."

Pansy scowled. "Stop staring at Granger kissing."

Blaise defended himself, but couldn't really pull his gaze away from the kissing couple across from them. Like a car crash. "It's just so weird. You know we called her the Iron-belted Gryffindor Princess, right? And now she pulls his soul out kissing."

Pansy huffed. "Of course, I know, I called her it."

Blaise exhaled, watching his best friend snog his "girlfriend" in public again that would pull your shoes off if you'd looked closely, and turned to his girlfriend. "I give up. He's a lost cause. Granger, all yours." Pansy nodded in support.

Hermione Granger grinned through her lips welded to Draco's. "Thanks, Blaise. I take it from here."

Blaise nodded. "Please do. I wipe my hands clean. Let's go, Pansy," he tapped her waist for her to get up from her chair. "Our presence is not needed here. Have a nice snog, you two."

"On it," Draco murmured as a way to say good-bye to his two oldest friends.

.

**Harry cont'd:**

One by one, people came around. The next day, the doorbell at Hermione's apartment rang not only once.

.

"Hi"

"Hi, Ron" Hermione stood and looked perplexed at one of her best friends.

"May I come in?" Ron nodded into her foyer.

"Oh, erm, of course," Hermione said and moved aside.

"Is he here?" Ron asked, stepping into her entrance hall.

"Yes, but he's busy in the study. And it's still my apartment, so I can invite whoever I want in," Hermione replied and closed the door behind him.

She proceeded toward her living room and offered Ron a seat on the couch while she plopped into her beloved armchair. She cast a Muffliato just in case.

Ron sat for a minute before he said: "I still can't believe that you're in love with him."

Hermione sighed. "Ron, there are all kinds of reasons to fall in love. We usually fall in love with somebody who's good for us, who gives us something we need or we can't do ourselves. And make do with the shortcomings of our chosen love object. It's not an ideal we fall in love with. It would be terrible if we expected our partner to be ideal. Draco may not have a heart of gold, but then, I have enough of that for two. But he has a heart. And I opened it, so, it's mine."

Ron snorted incredulously. "That's it? You feel sorry for him for his lack of heart?"

Hermione sighed again. "No, Ron. It's way more than that. It's a fine balance, a give and take. Draco appreciates me for things you always took for granted and he gives me things nobody else can. If he loves me for my forgiveness and the peace of mind it gives him, then so be it."

Ron sat in silence, mulling over her words.

"What about you and Lavender?" Hermione ventured carefully. She hadn't heard anything since their fallout on New Year's Day.

Ron exhaled. "Well, I like her. I think what we have together is good. But she needs to mature. She needs to understand our friendship. She haggled with the fact that you are so smart that you can outthink her by miles, and that made her bitchy."

Hermione scoffed. Ron speaking of maturity was a bit awkward. "Yeah, well, I'm not going to become stupid to accommodate her."

Ron smiled at that. "Of course not. She needs to learn that. Also the fact that you are smarter than most of us, but still don't feel superior and have to be handled with care. As you would any friend, really. I told her as much."

Hermione lowered her gaze. Perhaps he had taken something away from the war after all. He had learned from his mistakes, well, some. "I heard that you did that. Thank you."

Ron looked away to the window. "Too little too late, I suppose."

"No, don't say that. I'm actually quite proud of you for standing up for me, Ron." Hermione hedged forward.

Ron looked back and grinned. "Ginny told me she was proud of me. That's twice in a very short time from two people who are important to me. I seem to be doing alright if close people are proud of me."

"I just want you to do well, Ron. You are still one of my best friends. We've been through so much together."

He got up. "I know. I want the same for you. If Malfoy is good for you, then by all means … . I'll still hex him into the next century if he screws up and hurts you, though. No, wait …," he stopped himself. "Into the last century. In the future he could still do more damage. We could actually meet him again." He shuddered.

Hermione had to laugh at that and got up herself. "Thank you, Ron. I'll let you know if I need you for that. You'd probably have to get in line behind me, though."

Ron laughed back and then wrapped his arms around her small frame for a huge bear hug. "Take good care of yourself, you hear me?" he whispered into Hermione's thick hair and pressed his lips on her cheek for a friendly kiss.

"That's my girl, Weasley," came a sharp voice from behind them.

Despite Hermione's stiffening, Ron finished the kiss on the cheek but took his hands away. Then he came up grinning.

"No harmful intentions, Malfoy. She's still my friend, though, and I'll hug her if she lets me."

"Be that as it may, Weasley, I strongly suggest that you are on your way out the door, because I need my woman back," Draco snarled.

Ron kept grinning and tried to drag it out for a bit. "Are we finished, Hermione?"

Hermione had to laugh despite the tension she felt from Draco. "I believe we were, Ron. Thanks for coming. It was good to see you."

"Yes," Ron replied with vehemence. "I believe it was. Take care, Hermione. Malfoy." Ron nodded towards Draco and went to leave. Hermione stepped behind him to walk him to the door.

When she came back, she looked a little uncertain at her possessive boyfriend, who had a purring blond cat on his shoulders.

"How's she making out with Crookshanks?" Hermione asked, avoiding the topic of Ron.

Draco grinned: "Not quite making out yet, but she already gave him a slap on the nose."

Hermione smiled back: "Well, that sounds promising."

Draco stepped up to her for a soft kiss on the nose: "Yes, if female slapping male is anything to go by."

Hermione chuckled while Draco started kissing his way down her neck and back up her face again.

"Would you have slapped me if you had known that it was the beginning of connecting and falling in love with me?" he murmured against her cheek.

She chuckled again. "Probably not. I'm glad I didn't know."

"Me, too."

When he had made his way kissing up to her temple, he murmured in her hair: "You know you don't have to be afraid that I hex you or your friends when they give you a friendly hug."

Hermione exhaled. "Your voice indicated otherwise."

He snickered. "I can't help that I sound as if I wanted to hex his balls off, which I do in fact, but I know I can't keep up the no-touching-my-girlfriend-rule forever."

Hermione looked at him sceptically. "So, you won't be tempted to hex their bollocks off next time they hug me? Harry or Ron?"

Draco sighed. "I'll be tempted but I'll learn. They are important to you and I can't isolate you from them. You Gryffindors are a touchy feely bunch. You need to hug. I'll get to understand it."

"Hmm," Hermione relaxed into her boyfriend's chest. "What if Blaise hugs me?"

"I'll rip him limp from limp," Draco snarled instantly.

And then the doorbell rang again.

Hermione stomped of exasperated. "What is it with people dropping by today?"

To Draco's chuckle she stalked to her front door and ripped it open, only to receive the shock of her life when she saw who stood out there.

"Lavender!"

"Hello, Hermione," Lavender Brown said with her eyes downcast.

Hermione heard Draco approach quickly from behind and block the entrance next to her, his wand casually in his hand.

"Ron's not here, he just left."

Lavender shook her head. "I didn't come to see Ron," she said with a tear thick voice. "I came to see you. And him," she indicated with a jerk of her head to Draco. Draco shifted to a defensive stance: relaxed in the shoulder and chest part for easy movement, but solid in the hips and legs.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I'm so sorry, Hermione. I didn't know they were going to tweak my statement to make it sound so malice toward you. We've always been friends, haven't we? I don't say bad things about my friends."

Hermione huffed a laugh. In the goodness of her heart, she had almost been ready to hear Lavender out when she saw the tears over Ron's name. But this …

Draco snorted next to her. She exchanged a quick glance with him and saw his eye roll. She sighed.

"Listen, Lavender. I'm going to close the door and we'll try that again, shall we? One last chance. Make it good." With that, she pushed the door close in Lavender's face and leaned her forehead against it. "I can't believe it," she murmured. "I actually have to coach her how to apologize to us."

She felt Draco's hand on her bum and heard his voice before she felt his kiss in the nape of her neck. "What fun would it be if she had outright apologized? This way you can make her work and PAY for her impudence. First class Slytherin, closing the door in her face."

His hands on her bum made for a warm tingle when he was stroking it softly. Hermione wanted nothing more than to lean into it and let him have his way. But she had an unwelcome visitor and it would be very unhelpful to have Lavender wait, knowing that Draco was here with her. She chortled. "Honestly?"

"Oh, yes," Draco blew warm breath against her neck when he spoke. A shiver crept up her spine, starting right from where he touched. "It kind of turns me on when you wash somebody's head. The way you did Potter when you told him about our adjunction, hmmmm," he did savouring. "I had to wank when I got home."

Hermione turned her head halfway to him and look incredulous over her shoulder at him. "Does it really arouse you when I'm enraged over something?"

"Really," he grinned, took her hand and laid it on his crotch. "Especially over somebody, not something."

Hermione turned to his grinning face with a quirked eyebrow. The feeling of his hands on her bum remained as a warm after touch.

"Indeed." She gave her lover a beaming smile. "Do you want a shot at her?"

Draco leaned forward and spoke against her temple, effectively pushing his loins into her hand. "I can add a few pejorative remarks and snorts but I'd rather if you give her what she deserves. I want to see her crumble under your crushing superiority. And I want to feel your magic bristle teasingly when you are enraged. I'll make it worth your while afterwards."

"Deal," Hermione snickered, and with a quick kiss to Draco's jaw turned to open the door again.

Lavender still stood as if glued to her doormat and looked extremely unsophisticated, not to say stupid.

"You were saying?" Hermione barked at her.

Lavender swallowed heavily.

"I want to apologize to you and Malfoy for saying things to the press that made your life more difficult. But I didn't know about your adjunction. Well, at least I didn't know that you were supposed to do good for our entire world with it."

Hermione took a deep breath. Here goes, she thought, and tried to ignore Draco's hand slowly creeping up her back and unseen by Lavender doing little erotic swirls on her spine. "It shouldn't make any difference if our adjunction magic helped us to make ducks quack better, Lavender. What you did was extremely thoughtless and dangerous for Draco. And for me," she added as an afterthought.

Hermione practiced her best scowl and lowered her voice to a malignant hiss, which was all the more difficult because Draco was twirling some of her locks behind her back, which drove her absolutely nuts. It reminded her of the way he usually dug his hands deep into her locks, holding her face to him for a deep kiss, when she was on top.

"We were able to contain the damage, no thanks to you, but barely. You almost single handedly destroyed the effect of the compow's work for the wizarding world. Helping with the healing. You remember Susan Bones who lost half her family? And Hannah Abbott lost her aunt and uncle and cousins. Teddy Lupin is an orphan. Ron and Ginny lost a brother. Dumbledore. And many more. I'm pretty sure the survivors would be very happy to know that we'll be able to do something to prevent further deaths like their loved ones. Do you want to take that away from them?"

Hermione was very satisfied with the way she hissed. Picturing Nagini helped a lot. The matter was dear to her heart, but making Lavender suffer for her stupidity felt pretty darn good as well. Perhaps Draco's Slytherin qualities did taint her for the better. And Draco's hands slowly sliding back down to her arse, swirling once over the cheek tops with feather light fingers, felt good as well, but that was another topic. This was what her huge brain was good for: compartmentalising. She could think up ways to punish Lavender verbally and enjoy Draco's intriguing touches at the same time. Thank Merlin for her brain.

When Lavender looked at her horror struck, she said: "No, hm? I didn't think so. So, next time before you open your dirty mouth think three times who could possibly be affected. If you can't think of anybody who could possibly be hurt, because you're too stupid to imagine, come to me, explain it and I'll tell you who you would hurt with it, because there will always be somebody, understood?"

When Lavender looked clueless, Hermione rolled her eyes and Draco snickered maliciously behind her. "Give it up, Granger, how can she possibly understand it with her pea size brain," he remarked snidely.

Hermione sent him "the look" and carried on. "What I mean is you will hurt somebody whenever you gossip. It may not always have a catastrophic effect like in our case, but it will hurt somebody. And in the future, I will make sure that it'll come back to you, understood?"

Lavender nodded hesitantly.

"Well, then, I've heard that you have to make it public, this apology, to take back the effect your published gossip had, so, get to it. I'll let you go - hoo," Draco had just slid his finger between her butt cheeks and the sensation sent shivers up Hermione's back and into her womb. She recovered quickly and kept her scowl on for good measure. "You better get to it. Say "hi" to Parvati for me."

"I have to apologize to him as well," Lavender said with a scowl of her own.

Hermione huffed. She wanted this bint gone from her doorstep, so she could make Draco do the sensation between her butt cheeks again. She turned to her tormentor and asked prickly: "Do you need your own apology?"

"Absolutely. But I want it done right here. I'm not stepping out with that, Granger," he snarled.

"Well, get on with it," she snarled back at Lavender. If she could hurry up, that would be terrific. Hermione had a Malfoy to shag. In the moment he stepped next to her in the doorframe, he brushed by her waist and she felt him fully prepared. How he was able to hide his magic wand in the front of his trousers had escaped her, but she strongly suspected a non-verbal glamour charm to hide his tent. She used the few moments Lavender stumbled over her half-cocked apology to Malfoy to squeeze his delicious arse behind his own back. Ha, revenge was sweet. She felt him tensing under her hands and gave him another squeeze and let her fingers slide through his butt crack, so that he became impatient with Lavender's stumbling and stuttering and finally interrupted her with a snarl to remove herself from his sight.

"For Salazar's sake, Brown. Just get out of here. The public and written one is more important anyway. I want full disclosure that it was all your imagination, your name as big as possible, right next to the word apology and my name and Granger's name not in the title, so people do not jump to assumptions. You think you can remember that?"

"Apology accepted until we see the Daily Prophet tomorrow," Hermione finished nastily (and hastily) and slammed the door shut again. Before she could let go of the doorknob, Draco was in her back attacking her neck and working his hands into the waistband of her trousers. But she was still able to do a quick _Muffliato_, so Lavender wouldn't be able to overhear what they were doing, hoping Lavender had no Weasley's Expandable Ear.

"I thought she would never leave," Draco groaned into Hermione's hair. "Why is it that it turns me on so much when you snarl at somebody?"

She snickered. "It's your own fault that it didn't go faster. You wanted your own apology. I wanted to offer a collective apology and get rid of her, but no, Mr Slytherin Prince needs extra time. And it turns you on because you like to see people cringe."

He chuckled. "I was a little distracted with a certain butt crack. It seems extra sensitive today. And you are right, I suppose. I do like to see people cringe. And wince." He repeated the stroke he had done before while sucking on her neck and received a shudder and a hearty moan from Hermione. "And shudder," he added non sequitur.

Hermione felt both his hands enclosing her arse in a firm grip and pushed her back into the delicious feeling, feeling something else behind his hands. She breathed a laugh. "And here I thought you were distracted with the extra strong Glamour charm to hide your tent."

She could feel him grin against her skin. "Did you feel it?"

"How could I not?" she replied, turned around to face him and attacked his mouth in an instant, moving her hands south to take hold of a certain staff at the same time. As soon as she found it, Draco detached his lips with a groan.

"If this had been a Slytherin initiation you would have passed with flying colours. I'm impressed and so ready to nail you," he spoke against her lips, rubbing his cock into her hand, and putting his hands on her bottom again. Hermione smoothed her thumb over the head through the cloth and wished his trousers would vanish so she would have better access. When they immediately disappeared she realized by Draco's groan that he must have wanted the same thing.

Taking quick action, he worked her trousers and pants down her legs, pulled her feet out one by one and put it back on the floor. Then, he worked his way up her legs with his lips and hands, making sure that he stopped at her thatch of hair half way up. His pulse sped up when he saw the glistening over the sliver of pink and smelled her arousal.

Blood pounding in his ears, he was amazed at his luck that Hermione Granger of all people was so responsive to him. But he didn't question it. He just wanted more: touching her soft skin, smelling her sweet sense, hearing her moan and tasting her sweet and salty taste. He dug right in.

Hermione had a difficult time to remain standing when she felt his tongue ferociously dip and swirl between her lower lips, because her legs started shaking immediately. Within split seconds the fire igniting in her womb made its way through her body while she heard her heart beat in her ears. Moaning the tension off seemed to be the only sensible way when she felt the muscles in her channel clench in anticipation.

Draco watched with his face right against her aching core, as she shuddered and gasped. He grinned when her hands instinctively dug into his hair when he breathed gently on her folds.

"Come on up," she moaned. "I need a third leg support."

With his trademark smirk and a last tongue stroke he came up quickly and dropping his boxers, aligned himself between her legs. "As you wish," he grinned and with a tilt of his hips pushed in. Pressed against her door, Hermione lifted her legs and laid them like a chain around his hips, tilting her own pelvis and making him slide in deeper. They both exhaled loudly, a mix between relief and tension, delight and anticipation.

"Granger, you still have the best pussy I've ever tried. Hot and juicy," Draco breathed across her face, holding her under her bum cheeks against the door.

Hermione smiled. "Well, give her the best you've got. She's been good, she deserves it."

Draco panted against the pressure in his bollocks: "So did her owner. How about me?"

Hermione smirked: "If you give me your best, I give you my best," and squeezed her legs together, so that her internal muscles squeezed her intruder.

Draco shuddered. "Merlin, this is going to be hard."

"Hard AND Fast, I hope," Hermione whispered against his lips, and when he stilled to control his shudders she pulled his lower lip between hers and sucked.

Draco stood stock still, trying to come to terms with the arousal overwhelming him. If he had known Hermione Granger was such a little minx he would have searched out the Gryffindor princess earlier. But he knew that she had only become like this because of him. In his mind, he fought over the decision whether he should just enjoy his delighted shudders caused by her pressure and sucking or pound into Hermione until they both exploded. Because he was absolutely certain if he just remained like this and she squeezed a few more times, he was done for anyway. But where was the fun in that? Hermione took the decision from him.

"Just do it, Draco," she whispered once more against his mouth, nipping on his lip and squeezing her legs tightly around his waist. He threw his head back and whimpered when he felt her muscles milk him until all sanity left and all restraint was shot to hell.

And so he began to move. In and in and in and in, with a roll of his hips each time, so that he clipped her front wall with each move. Ploughing into her, he savoured the feeling of her silken walls squeezing around him.

He watched as her head fell back, noting how her lower lip became victim to her teeth as she fought back a moan of pleasure. He kissed his way across her throat and teased butterfly kisses trailing over her shoulders and under her ears.

He returned to kissing her mouth, groaning against it as his fingers teased her satiny slit. She was so wet, so aroused and it made him impossibly hard. Only Hermione Granger, he found, made him so hard. He just loved watching her reaction to his ministrations, how her head fell back as he played with her little bud, how she shuddered when he pleasured her. He stroked her bud, moving in and out at a fair pace, and felt the pleasure racing through her, felt her body tighten with need and anticipation just as a wave crashed over her and pulled her lower over his shaft. He knew the feeling of sheer, pure ecstasy that filled her, because he felt the same and he wanted her to feel it again and again. With him. Through him. Because Hermione Granger shuddering in a blissful orgasm was his and his alone.

Her lips crushing his in a bruising, passionate kiss drove him to his brink. Her hands trailed down his naked chest under the ripped open shirt, nails scraping over his heated flesh as he shuddered against her sweaty torso. He groaned in response, loving the feel of her abundant passion, enjoying the slickness of the moisture coating the connection between their bodies; the feeling of her surrounding him, her wet muscles, so soft, so strong, clenching around his prick nearly made him come. He heard her moan in after-pleasure, heard her murmur his name when her lips found his. Panting into her mouth, he couldn't wait any longer.

He surged his hips upwards, slamming himself deep inside of her, making her cry out in response.

"Sorry," he panted with clenched jaws. "I can't wait any longer."

She gently squeezed his balls, earning a desperate whimper from him. "It didn't hurt. Go ahead. It feels good no matter what you do."

He straightened his stance and put one of his hands under bottom for support and the other against the door behind her, for his support. And then he went to town.

Her nails bit into his hips, urging him to move, to bury himself deeper in her body, to feel her around him all the way to the hilt. They raked across his chest, his arms, his back, and anything else she could grab hold of. Anywhere she touched only added fuel to the flame, increasing his pleasure tenfold until he found himself in a straight line to the final.

"Oh Gods, Draco … yes," she cried as he pushed himself faster and deeper into her and her closer to the next climax. The sound of his name moaned, the feel of her heat enclosing him, pushed him forward. In seconds, he was crushing her against the door, burying himself in her, harder and faster, stroking deeper and rougher as she writhed against him. He was beside himself in frenzy when he felt the familiar pull in his balls.

"Fuck, Hermione, oh yes, Hermione!" he shouted, the feeling of her wet muscles pulling him in finally pushing him over.

He spilled his seed in her, coming with such strength and power that it momentarily choked him and made his body shake violently. Pleasure filled him, vibrating through his body as he surged his hips harder, trying to make it last as long as possible before he was brought back down to earth.

In the end, he didn't know how they wound up with her on him, lying on the carpet in her front room. All he knew was that she had screamed at one point, strangling his prick in her channel, and he was sated in a way that he had never been. Before her, that was.

Again. With her. Nirvana. The sacred land above all lands, where day-to-day concerns didn't matter anymore. Where it didn't matter who you were, just how much pleasure you could give. Here, he was a winner. He was never going to leave. The feel of her body, slick with sweat, pliant with satisfaction, pressed against his was the most delightful feeling he had ever experienced in his life. He didn't remember when and how their clothes came off, but off they were, so his hands stroked over the soft skin of her back. He was not giving this up. Ever. Draco tightened his arms around his woman.

Hermione had felt herself bump against the door and the flesh of her arse slap loudly against the smooth surface with every shove. 'How could I not love this?' she had thought in the last working part of her brain that was not involved in milking the appendage of her virile boyfriend and receiving him into her body in wild carnal pleasure.

She'd said to Ron, there were different reasons to love. And there were likewise many definitions of love. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection toward a person, arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities or a sense of underlying oneness. But likewise a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair. Sex and romance. So, with Draco it would be primarily sex. Passionate sex. Boy, was it ever. But why should the sex part be any less than the flowery, rose coloured love of a girl with a crush on a presumably perfect male?

And Draco could give her a run for her money intellectually. That alone was worth it. He challenged the way she consumed and spew out knowledge like currency. He made her think, really think, and use her brain creatively.

And their magic. Their magic fitting together like a giant puzzle, making one. She'd never been this magically compatible with anyone.

A sense of oneness. One whole put together from many pieces.

Love made you give pieces of yourself to the beloved person. You gave a piece of your soul to your lover for safe keeping and the lover received said piece with grace and the intention to keep it safe and unharmed and whole. Wholeness again.

With Draco, she was whole. They were one. Draco gave parts of himself to her every time she received him. He may not have done it with other partners, but he did it with her. Their "fucks" were way more than simple sex: they were their means to connect and exchange their life force; and their magic. And that made them whole. Together.

Draco Malfoy was giving himself over to her, for safe keeping. Because he trusted her to keep him safe. Because he loved her. The epiphany shook Hermione to the core. The feeling exploding in her chest, dousing her in warmth, could have revived a dead manticore. It was dangerous and powerful and blinding in its intensity and Hermione loved it. This was the overpowering "love" feeling she had been waiting for.

"I love this," she thought. "And he is giving this to me. He is giving himself to me. I love his body and his mind and his magic. He is perfect for me. Intimately connected, together, we are one. I love it. He's a part of it. I love him."

Filled to the brim with this overwhelming emotion, shuddering in its grip, her body exploded with Draco's last prolonging strokes, trying to drag out his own climax. She screamed when she felt the emotion burst and douse her in a mix of firework colours, predominantly purple, green and silver, and heat and cold. The fact that her head smashed against the door behind her, didn't register until she had come way down.

"Told you," a little well-known voice purred in her mind.

Forgetting to snarl mentally at her little nagger, Hermione rested her forehead against his prone head, when she found herself lying on his front, and said: "I love you."

Draco stilled. Even his panting stopped. And then his face morphed into his regular Malfoy sneer. Hermione's heart stopped, seeing him sneering. "I know," he said. "But it's good for you to know. About time, Granger."

Hermione was shocked. Why wasn't he over the moon that she had finally come around and expressed her love? Why didn't he rejoice like any man in love would do? Letting her gaze glide over his features, she stopped at his eyes and saw the glint and it came to her. Because he was Draco Malfoy and he didn't do outward Gryffindor joy. But it was clearly written in his eyes.

She smiled. He didn't need to say it back and show affection. He had done it. And he had waited long enough for her. If that wasn't proof …

And there was something else in him, in his grey orbs staring back at her, an abundance of emotions she'd never seen before in him: gratitude, tenderness, relief, joy, and - dare she say it?

How could she not have seen it?

After a moment of hesitation, he proved her point with a kiss that took her breath away. A kiss that was everything it's supposed to be: sweet and tender, hungry and passionate, soft and hard, urgent and hesitant, grateful and annoyed, all at once. A perfect kiss.

Hermione felt as if she had never been kissed before, not even by the master kisser, Draco Malfoy himself. She swooned into it and feeling weak, she slid of his stomach and into his side, leaning into his body. Draco followed her slide with his head and didn't let go for a second. When he finally did stop, it took Hermione a few seconds until she realized that he was looking at her. Mercurial as he was, his face had changed to uncertain tenderness.

"You are the perfect woman," he spoke right against her lips when she looked up. When she pulled her face into the beginning of a grimace, he added: "And I'm not saying this lightly, you know."

When Hermione pulled back, and started with "Draco, you know I'm not …" he grabbed her chin and said further: "Eh, eh, don't try to deny it, Granger. It's true and you know it."

Seeing the zest for life in his gaze, Hermione acquiesced and with a quirked mouth conceded: "Perhaps for you."

"And that's all that counts," he said, swooping down to kiss her again.

The second kiss didn't miss much on the first and Hermione let go only with reluctance and only for necessary breathing purposes. But she let herself be pulled against his body and rested her head comfortably on his chest. From there she looked down the hallway, further into her apartment and saw two cats watching them intently.

Seeing Gwenny and Crookshanks sitting in the doorframe to the living room, side by side, watching them on the floor, Gwenny rubbed her head against Crooks jaw as if she had never done anything else. Crookshanks put his nose into Gwenny's ear as if he was going to tell her a secret. Her chosen partner, after she had overcome compunctions. The cat was right.

Hermione snickered. To Draco's questioning gaze she answered: "We have company."

Lying on the floor half beneath her as he was, Draco pushed his head back and looked backward upside down. The sight of the two cats made him smile as well.

"Perhaps we should join them," he said.

"I'd say, we should," Hermione agreed with a soft kiss on Draco's stretched out throat. "And show them again how it's done, on the couch. Nothing teaches companionship than an illustrated guide. Or a life show."

Draco was up on his feet, carrying her pressed against his front, before she had finished her sentences.

_A/N: Alright, I'm still taking requests on what else you need for the story to be finished. Tell me. Nikki98, Hermione's parents get their turn in the next part. _

_Song recomms, requests, leave them here, in a nice review (or a PM). I don't know how long it's going to take to finish the next (last) chapter but it's more than half written and unless you don't have major requests, it's looking good for next week._


	46. Epilogue part 2

_A/N: Yay, skittlezzify (?), thank you, I know, but all good things must come to an end. Feel free to invent your own ;-))); And thank you, Anon. I read The Fallout by everythursday (on H&V) recently. Her story is equally long for a slow description of the slow built-up of the Dramione relationship, so I feel much better, even if my writing can't match up to hers. And sorry, the Veritasserum idea went bunk. Since it was so important just recently that their relationship stays hidden for a while I couldn't have him blurt it out for all to hear. I had another idea, though. I hope you'll be pleased. He gets to demolish somebody whose guts I hated in the book._

_And boy, you are insatiable. I barely managed to wrap my head around the story for once again, to finish more parts of it, because work is swallowing me whole. It's not that I have the complete story lying around on my computer and I'm simply too lazy to bother updating. Well, I do now (having a further part on my computer). And that's why I can update. Here you go._

**.**

**Epilogue part 2**

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**Harry's POV cont'd:**

**.**

At the day of their official summons I went to the Ministry with them. Up until then, they had stayed a little secluded in Hermione's apartment to avoid all awkward questions and to get a head start on researching for their work on the counters. I met them in the Atrium and we took the elevator together to Level Two, where also the Auror Headquarters was. Mafalda's office was on the other side from the elevator, the second hallway on the left. A waiting area in front of her office was plastered with chairs in different upholstery.

Mafalda Hopkirk was still a small woman with fly-away grey hair. She had survived the war but a certain fluttering glance in her eyes told the observer that it had left traces. Hermione stood a little nervous when she appeared in her door to call them in. After all, this had been the witch we had stunned and hidden in a basement while entering the Ministry in search of a horcrux. And Hermione had taken on her poly-juiced form to sit in a Muggle-born hearing with Dolores Umbridge. And while Mafalda had freed herself and likely concluded from the events later what had happened to her, we had never apologized. Defeating Voldemort was closure and rectification enough for most people.

Hermione swallowed, afraid that she would not be able to speak due to her nervousness, but before anybody could really say anything apart from "Close the door, please" and "Have a seat", the door opened again and in swept Dolores Umbridge.

"Mafalda, are they .. oh, there you are. May I have a word, Mr Malfoy?" She grabbed Malfoy's arm quickly and pulled him with her to the adjacent room through a connecting door. He later told us what had transpired behind closed doors. And some parts we had witnessed ourselves.

.

The war hadn't left many traces on Dolores Umbridge, that much was sure. She looked her same toady self, squat with her broad face and wide mouth and bulging eyes, which made her look naturally greedy. It didn't help that she had a greedy expression on her face as well. "Mr Malfoy, what a pleasure to see you again," she started out.

She was so set on her agenda that she didn't react when Draco mumbled, after a short strong nod of "Madam Umbridge" in her direction: "Too bad I can't say the same."

She pushed on. "I have a proposal for you, Mr Malfoy. We can help each other."

Draco was cautious. Umbridge was power-hungry. Sure, she had done it under the pretence of holding up Fudge's claim as the Minister of Magic, to defend him against the supposed usurper Dumbledore, but she had worked to bring Dumbledore down at Hogwarts and delved wonderfully in the power she gained at the school. And abused it spectacularly.

"In what way, Madam?"

She squinted at him through her large bulging eyes and leaning forward, whispered in a way that almost concealed her girlish high pitch of voice. "I can help you restore the Malfoy name."

Draco Malfoy noticed that he had leaned forward conspiratorial when she had done so and was a little upset with himself for doing so. "How so?" he asked snidely, straightening up.

Dolores Umbridge simpered her little laugh. Draco felt the skin on his back crawl. "I have my ways. But you'll have to do something for me, as well."

Draco's face didn't move a muscle. He had been well trained by his father not to show any emotion when in negotiation. Just because he let his mask drop for Hermione and enjoyed that he didn't have to hold onto his muscles when she was around, didn't mean he couldn't still do it anymore. "What makes you think I would want to work with you?"

"Well, you've done it before, Mr Malfoy. You were a good boy in my inquisitorial squad, until the moment you wanted a piece of the pie."

Draco felt the fury unfold in him but hid it in true Malfoy fashion. He was his father's son, after all, and so, when he spoke, it was coolly-restrained, and intentionally leading her on a witch hunt, pun intended. "You misunderstood me. I only thought about the risk that you took, trusting Hermione Granger to lead you wherever she supposedly had hidden the secret weapon. Especially since her tears were as false as a mudblood becoming Minister of Magic."

Umbridge hushed him. "Shhh, Mr Malfoy. It is not prudent to speak such words within the Ministry." She gave him what was to go for a beaming smile. "As true as they may be," she finished whispering. Draco rolled his shoulders to suppress the shudder.

Umbridge simpered again. "Ah, well, Mr Malfoy, I underestimated you. But you were only a boy then. Now, however, you have a deeper understanding." She winked. Draco suppressed a renewed shudder. "I have connections in the right places."

When Draco looked unconvinced, she continued with another simpering laugh. "Who did you think pressed Mafalda into summoning you and your muggle consort? But of course, yours truly." She padded his arm in a motherly way and Draco had to concentrate very hard not to wince under her touch. This small woman just emitted evil. "Now, Mr Malfoy, I believe we can come to an understanding. With most of your assets frozen by the Ministry as means of retribution, you are a little handicapped as far as your family is concerned, aren't you? Well, I can unfreeze them and have your father released in say – two years?"

Draco swallowed. She was right. Many of their assets were frozen but with the turmoil that was his connection to Hermione he hadn't thought much about it. And Umbridge apparently had no ideas how vast the Malfoy fortune actually was. It wasn't that he or his mother would ever starve over the Ministry actions. Or anybody else for that matter. His father released, on the other hand – did he actually want that? Did he want the influence of his old man additionally to fight against? Because he was absolutely certain that he would have to fight his father. He couldn't stand by his father's side anymore. Not unless his old man had changed while in Azkaban and that seemed unlikely. He would actually have to find out. A father – son talk was in order. Soon.

Umbridge mistook his second of thought for hesitation. Rightfully so, but in her greed and with their mutual history, she didn't even consider that he might have other ideas. She offered him more and that was what made Draco starting to think of ways to stop her. Until then, he had only thought of how to get out of this situation and return to Hermione's side. He felt her magic reaching out to him, dipping here, tapping there blindly, like a lover exploring with her eyes closed; quite enjoyable, really. He wanted to hurry back to assure her that he was fine, even though he knew she knew he was fine; she would have really felt if he wasn't. But with the way Umbridge tried to rope him into a scheme of hers, he figured he needed to know more to be able to judge the situation better.

"One year?" she offered.

"And what do you want from me in exchange?" Dolores Umbridge had been a Slytherin herself and although never remarkable in her school years, she had grown up with the cunning tit-for-tat mentality that was Slytherin's own, Draco knew.

Umbridge proceeded cautiously.

"I just need to confirm something first. From what I heard on the wireless, you have quadruple magical power, Mr Malfoy, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"And you can dissemble oncoming spells?"

"Yes, but so far, only with Hermione Granger together."

She swatted her hand in the air. "Yes, yes, most unfortunate that. I can only imagine how you must feel, constantly in the presence of this, this … muggleborn." She shuddered. So, that was where the wind was blowing from.

Umbridge tipped her blown out lips while thinking. Draco thought he had rarely seen anything thus disgusting. "Does Ms Granger have to be conscious for the power to work?"

"I don't know, I believe not," Draco stalled cautiously. He remembered how he had woken her out of her magically induced coma. Hermione had pulled from the other side, but he wasn't going to tell Umbridge anything she didn't need to know.

Umbridge's face lit up. "Good, good. So we could stun her, and just keep her hidden somewhere. Or we could imperious her and she would actually contribute. Yes, yes, that's good. She would actually be able to convince Potter to back her up and …"

"To do what?" Draco interrupted snidely.

Umbridge grinned mischievously. "Why, to campaign for the next Minister of Magic, of course. Well, I would be the Mistress of Magic, naturally. Just imagine: the first woman to become Headmistress of Hogwarts, High Inquisitor AND Mistress of Magic. In one lifetime. Ah, the glory."

Draco wasn't sure whether he should snort or hex her on the spot. Apparently, the war had left some serious damage on her. Grandiosity, for one. Not quite visible to the human eye, but still …

"And how did you intend to achieve that?"

"Well, Mr Malfoy, with your back-up, of course; the extra power, old blood, long-standing powerful family, if you supported me, other old families would be as well. The Dark Lord is gone but his ideas are still unfulfilled and …"

'For good reason', Draco thought, ignoring the rest of her rant. 'They are unfulfilled for good reason, you old croaker. Because we fought damn hard against it. You need to be stopped.'

"Why do you want to be Mistress of Magic? What do you hope to achieve? What's your campaign going to be?" he asked, pretending to be interested, just to keep her talking.

Umbridge humph'd. "Order. It's all about order, Mr Malfoy, isn't it? Look at the chaos out there, right now. I can bring order to the Wizarding world. Order is what we need. Discipline." She inhaled deeply before she rambled on.

"Harry Potter ruined the whole thing. It came so nicely together, the right people in the right positions. You know it was my idea with the Muggleborn registration, do you? Mr Travers was very delighted when I proposed it to him. Oh, I knew he was a spoilt brat, that Potter, I tried to get him to toe the lines." She interrupted herself by laughing again. "I had him DO lines, can you believe it? And what lines those were." Her eyes glittered dangerously when she snickered. This woman needed a serious damper, by Merlin.

Draco narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He didn't know the story about Potter doing lines, but it couldn't have been anything good. He would have to ask him about it. Or Hermione; she probably knew.

"And then he had to go ahead and defeat the Dark Lord. HE would have brought order into the world. All these muggleborns into their places. Ah, it would have been so peaceful." She huffed.

Since he was gone for almost fifteen minutes now, he felt Hermione's magic truly reaching for his. She was not really concerned, but he felt the puzzlement of his extended absence. It felt like a loving touch, stretching out, searching, longing for and connecting with him. He just couldn't disappoint it. Her. Couldn't disappoint her. He wanted her in this room, with him. At the most, he wanted her to hear what he was going to say. Because it needed to be said. She knew he loved her and he would stand up for it, but other than that, she had no good reason to trust him in his sincerity. She had no way of knowing where he would be in five years, if he would fall back when his father put pressure on him. He had to make her see that he wasn't going anywhere. Draco let his magic grab onto Hermione's probing magical tendrils. The same way he had grabbed onto it, when they had flayed in the air while she had been crucioed. This time, he felt her hold on tight. He felt the relief flooding over their connection, relief to actually have a connection, relief to have found him. 'I'm here,' he sent over the bond with his anger. 'I need your attention. You have to listen.' He didn't put it into words but he was sure she felt his need.

And it got a reaction. 'I'm all ears,' he felt back. 'I can feel you. And I'm glad. Why are you so angry?'

Warm. It was warm. Live giving warmth. Like sunshine on the light starved soil on the first sunny afternoon in spring; the first sign that winter was truly over.

A slight gust from the door in his back made him aware that it had likely opened, allowing somebody to listen. Now, he had to trick Umbridge into repeating her ridiculous ideas. He schooled his face into a carefully controlled mask, showing nothing of his disgust or his joy. "So, you want me to support you in campaigning for Mistress of Magic, is that it?"

"Yes, Mr Malfoy. With your power, we will be invincible. Of course, you lack the vision of true leadership, so for now, you will be in the background. But I'll teach you. I'll teach you how to preserve order in the world."

Draco held on to his face muscles with all might, so they wouldn't betray him by wincing. "What would you have me do with your adversaries?"

"Crush them to dust, I don't care. I leave that to your discretion. An upstanding young man as you, I'm sure you have your resources."

"And tell me again, what we would do with Hermione Granger who is essential to my power?"

Umbridge's greed and the prospect of having her wish so close at hand made her blind. "Well, we can imperious her and she will go with you wherever you go. She may even be able to convince Potter to help us. He likes her, doesn't he, the rumour-mongering fool."

It was no use. He couldn't hold onto his mask much longer. His anger over this perfidious woman was cursing through him, bubbling over at the edges. He had to move quickly. He straightened to his full height, which meant he towered over Umbridge for a good two heads.

"No," he hissed. "As much as it pains me to see my family separated and my mother without a husband, my father is best kept where he is, for the moment. The world needs healing. People need to recover from the horrors that have been Voldemort, and my father was a part of it, there's no denying it."

Umbridge was shocked. "But surely, Mr Malfoy, you need guidance in your adolescent life."

"I do not need this kind of guidance, I assure you," Draco spat. "I have a very trusted advisor. I trust her explicitly and I listen to her, and nobody else. Even if she is a muggleborn, she has magic that you can only dream off, Madam. Hermione Grange,r and my connection to her, is my future. And people like you need to be put away. Your service," Draco made an ominous pause, "is no longer needed."

"B-bbut, Mr Malfoy," Umbridge stumbled with eyes wide as saucers. She hadn't expected him to be so oppositional. At school, he had been all ears to her ideas of power for the ministry, away from Dumbledore.

"No, Madam. Making Dumbledore less powerful was one thing. We didn't know,…" He stopped and took a deep breath. "I didn't know what it meant, how a life without Harry Potter and Dumbledore's presence was going to be. I didn't realize until later. But I have an idea now. And Hermione Granger was instrumental in getting me there. She saved my life in ways you cannot even imagine. It goes beyond your power hungry imagination to realize the magnitude of our magic. Even if I could, I would never betray her! And you," he looked at her with a deep frown, "I believe, you need to have some time to understand that your time is over."

"I quite agree, Mr Malfoy," Kingsley Shacklebolt intervened, coming in through the half opened door, flanked by Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. He moved his hand toward Umbridge and said: "Detain her."

Two aurors came in behind him and seized her.

"Minister, how … why …?" she babbled, two sturdy men hanging on her arms.

"For treason, Dolores. And for having a totally screwed understanding about what magic is about. You will be suspended without pay until further notice."

"Further notice?"

Kingsley Shacklebolt didn't become interim Minister of Magic because he was a figurehead. He was a powerful and insightful wizard in his own right. His gaze on the epitome of an administrative apparatus that had outlasted its welcome and that Dolores Umbridge represented was nothing short of disgusted. When he spoke directly in her face, he had to bend down two feet to do so.

"Yes. Until I found you a better job. I am inclined to promote Arthur Weasley to undersecretary and his job needs filling. And filing. I believe you are very fond of filing, aren't you?" Raising himself to his full impressive height again, he commanded: "Take her to the detention unit."

"Why don't you just retire her?" Harry asked, when Umbridge had been dragged away, kicking and screaming, threatening to inform all her connections and that there would be nothing left of them, when she was done with them. Nobody incarcerated Dolores Umbridge. She was related to the Selwyns, for Merlin's sake. Harry shook his head and couldn't believe that this woman had ever been a teacher.

Kingsley snorted. "So she can sit at home and brood on more plans to bring the Ministry down with her fanatical order ideas? And while being paid from the Ministry coffers? I don't think so. And I don't think I can convince the Wizengamot of real treason for short spoken lapses. She has impeccable records, thus, she will escape Azkaban. The woman needs to be kept busy. If I had any dragon dens to clean I would let her do that, but unfortunately, we don't. But sorting out squelching, muggle swallowing public toilets is the next best thing for her, I believe."

"How about centaurs? I hear she likes centaurs." Harry grinned.

Hermione made her presence known for the first time and snickered. "Oh, yes," she added. "How about being a centaur liaison?" She had stood in the entrance with Harry and Shacklebolt and hadn't look anywhere but the blond man in the middle of the room. Harry saw the tears in her eyes, tears of relief and anger and joy, all in one. Her voice shook when she spoke but nobody commented on it. Nobody said anything either, when she stepped forward, passing Harry, and walked right up to Draco Malfoy and into his arms, letting them wrap around her.

Kingsley sneered at her words. "No, thank you, I like to keep the good relations I have with all magical creatures."

He turned to Draco who had looked at the arrivals when they came in. His face was neutral but Hermione had seen the weariness and fury bubbling under it, and of course, she felt it. Draco Malfoy was tired of being everybody's pinball and go-to boy if they needed a job done, and it made him furious that he couldn't shake this image off. When Hermione had stepped up to him, right into the circle of his arms, he had embraced her for comfort, and because she had embraced him.

"You were great," she said quietly. "I'm so proud of you. I told them how angry you were, and Kingsley said, well, then, let's see what she concocts now, Dolores."

Looking at the serene faces of Kingsley Shacklebolt and Harry Potter, still standing in the entrance, Draco felt that for once somebody was cutting him some slack, and the focus wasn't on his wrong-doings. He felt his held breath escaping and returned Hermione's embrace with gusto, burrowing his face in her hair. God, he loved how she smelled and felt in his arms.

When he looked up again, Potter's face had morphed into something remotely reminding of a smile. Draco felt his mouth twitch. With some practice, eventually, he would be able to smile back.

"Well, Mr Malfoy," Shacklebolt broke in. "Do we want to continue with the interview regarding your adjunction magic? Mafalda has just started cataloguing your amazing magic with the guidance from Hermione, while you were so rudely removed from the interview. But your input would be much appreciated. I am most curious what you two have discovered so far. I actually took some time out of my overly busy schedule to listen first-hand." He waved with his hand to the embracing couple to follow him back to the other office. With his turn, one could see that Mafalda Hopkirk was actually standing behind him, wringing her fingers in nervousness. "Shall we?"

Draco took another deep breath, and loosened his arms around Hermione, so she could turn and walk with him, without letting go. "Thank you, Minister. Yes, I think we shall."

.

**Harry's POV **cont'd:

Kingsley sat with me in the back of the office, while Malfoy and Hermione sat directly across the desk from Mafalda. She asked them specific questions regarding their adjunction magic, reading from a form sheet, and they answered wherever and whatever they could. It really wasn't more than cataloguing what they knew. The interview finished when all avenues were explored, with the agreement to update the existing official file in a year's time.

Hermione had started talking to Mafalda without Malfoy, when he had been dragged from the room, despite her nervousness. But soon she had shifted in her seat and turned even more nervously around to see why he wasn't coming back. Five minutes after we had started, the door had opened again and Kingsley had stepped in. He had motioned with his hands that he didn't want to interrupt Mafalda, but she had stopped none the less and exchanged a few friendly and respectful words with the Minister of Magic. Before the interview could resume, Hermione had looked over to the other room, in which direction Malfoy had disappeared with Umbridge, and whispered: "He's angry."

"What was that, Hermione?" Kingsley had inquired in his deep resonant voice.

"He's angry," she repeated. "Whatever Umbridge is telling him is making him furious."

Kingsley looked suspicious. "Draco Malfoy is with Dolores Umbridge?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "She came in, grabbed him and pulled him out with her."

He eyed Hermione sharply. "Is there any way we can hear what they're talking about?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not through our connection." Then she smirked. "But perhaps if we opened the door? If they cast a _Muffliato, _I can do something about that."

"Brilliant," Kingsley mumbled, but went over and opened the door infinitesimal movement by movement. The door opened just in time to hear Umbridge say: "I had him DO lines, can you believe it? And what lines those were." My jaw clenched. She had actually enjoyed torturing me through cutting my hands. The words were still etched in my skin. I just hoped the truth would come to her at one point. Perhaps now was the chance.

Hermione stood behind me and peeked into the room over my shoulder. I could feel her tension in the way she clung to the back of my shirt. A short glance at her told me that she was weaving her magical connection with Malfoy: her eyes were glaced over, her focus introspect. And I felt their energy in the air; it sizzled the way air feels after a thunderstorm.

Kingsley saw my clenching jaw. He raised a questioning eyebrow at me and I raised my hand to show him the damage done by her. Shacklebolt inhaled deeply (but not loudly) and his face turned grim. When he heard her next sentence about the tragedy of me defeating Voldemort and muggleborns in their place and the other rubbish, he signalled Mafalda to go get some aurors. He was going to put a stop to it.

Kingsley actually grinned, when Malfoy made Umbridge repeat her entire nonsense. He nodded respectfully at the fact that Malfoy made Umbridge tell her plans to all these witnesses listening, and a satisfied grin spread over his face. In the end, he looked mighty pleased that he'd had the chance to detain Umbridge.

Back in the interview, Hermione's nervousness regarding her previous encounter with Madam Hopkirk dissolved the more she got to talk about her and Malfoy's magic. By the end of the interview she was her usual busy-body self. But all in all she seemed more mature. Her posture was more erect, her face serene, and there was a self-assured aura around her. Malfoy sat very relaxed in his chair next to her, in typical Malfoy superiority, even though we had just witnessed his fury and tension. By the looks of them next to each other, it seemed that his self-assuredness had contaminated Hermione's fidgetiness. I looked at her for the entire half an hour of the interview, and by the end it had sunk in that the bossy, insufferable-know-it-all girl with the huge head of hair I had gone to school with had matured to a woman. I was a little awed. War certainly makes you grow up quickly, but gaining maturity was a different thing. There was a silent, soil deep power surrounding her, like the power you felt when standing under a century old tree.

The same went for Malfoy. Gone were the days of his blind bullying rage to my provocation. Matching Hermione's, but different in flavour, so to say, was an aura of power around him, silent, reigned in, but absolutely lethal when provoked. Merciless like a nature catastrophe, a hurricane wiping the plains of the earth, a flood burying, an earthquake swallowing everything. Like fate, making no difference who got in his way. Their way. Because it was absolutely certain that he wouldn't go anywhere without her, his counterpart. Hermione. Anything that threatened her would go a certain painful way by his magic, I was sure about it. Because as powerful as his magic felt, surrounding him, while sitting in the same room with him, it was tied in with Hermione. There was no doubt.

It was breath-taking, suffocating and I felt myself swallow against a dry throat. Kingsley turned his head halfway to me and I saw in his concentrated gaze the same epiphany. With a nod, Kingsley gave his permission and with a silent _Legilimens _I heard his thoughts: _We will need to keep him close. If he's tied to Hermione, then all the better. I trust his sentiment that he won't betray her, it is more than obvious that he won't, but he's a force to be reckoned with. And so is she. Good thing, they are bound to each other._ There was suspicion in Kingsley's thoughts, mistrust because Malfoy was a Malfoy. But there was also the awe in view of the hitherto unknown magic that was bigger than all of us. Glowing like light in the darkness.

I nodded my understanding and agreement. Relaxing back against my chair, I deliberated how the late Dumbledore had been right: the power of love, of life was almighty. A power to reckon with. But it could be incredibly beautiful and terrible at the same time. It was best to keep it in balance. Like the two lovers in front of us.

I sighed. At the very least, with their fantastical magical connection, they would take the focus of me for the next decade or so. Thank Merlin.

.

"What is it?"

Looking across her living room, Hermione saw Draco standing at the window, looking at a piece of parchment in his hand as if he wanted to light it on fire. When she didn't receive an answer, she went to him and slung her arms around his waist, looking over his shoulder at the parchment in his hands.

"From Andromeda?"

"Yes," Draco snarled. "My mother wants to talk to me."

Hermione looked dubious. "Andromeda sent an invitation because your mother wants to talk to you?"

Draco sighed and stretched an arm behind him to pull Hermione around. He kissed her forehead and when he had her right in his arms, he explained: "Granger, for such a smart woman you are utterly lacking in diplomatic politics. My mother can't well ask me to come to the Manor, can she? She knows I would refuse. And she doesn't want to come crawling to me, so she offers to meet on neutral ground, her sister's place. Her newly established relationship with her sister allows her to do that, and she knows that you are on good terms with Andromeda Tonks. And she explicitly invites you as well as a peace offering."

Hermione snorted. "I just … I'll just won't comment, alright? Neither to the convoluted way to arrange a meeting between a mother and her son, nor to your insinuation that I didn't understand it in the first place. I hope you can appreciate that I simply bite my tongue this time."

When Draco smirked half-heartedly, still deep in thought, Hermione ask further: "So, will you go?"

Looking down into her eyes, Hermione saw the machinery working in his brain, weighing pros and cons. She waited patiently until he addressed her. "Why should I go?"

Hermione sighed. "Because she's your mother. Give her the credit of having your best interest at heart. Whatever she did and said, I'm pretty sure she wanted what's best for you."

Draco didn't look convinced. His eyes flitted to the window, looking beyond, and back to her, when she spoke again. "Plus, she offered a peace sign. Don't you think she wants to be back on good terms with you? That she misses you and wants to know what's going on in your life?" Hermione added quietly.

Draco let his head sink forward, until his forehead leaned against Hermione's, and groaned: "You Gryffindors are rubbing off on me. I usually shouldn't care about the sensibilities of my mother."

"Yes, you should," Hermione admonished quietly, even though she knew what he meant. He meant, if all had gone as planned with his inclusion in Voldemort's ranks, he wouldn't and couldn't have cared about family ties. All he would have had to care about was his service and duty to the Dark Lord. And he had been raised for exactly that.

But since he was now free to live his life as he pleased, within limits, he should actually pay more attention to values that really counted. And one of them was family.

Draco groaned once more, nodded, and then let Hermione go to write a reply to Andromeda's message.

A few days later, they were making their way up the stone path to Andromeda's front door, which opened as soon as they took the last step.

"Hermione, Draco, come in," Andromeda said in her sonorous voice, standing in her doorway with Teddy on her hip.

"Hello, Andromeda." Hermione walked in with a smile and took Teddy from her.

Andromeda Tonks let her and shouted after her "Bring him in the kitchen. He needs a snack soon. I have some fruit puree prepared."

Talking to Teddy who sat in front of her belly, Hermione just waved a hand behind her and proceeded into the back of the house, presumably the kitchen.

Draco stood stock-still in the doorway to his long-lost aunt's house and looked after Hermione as if he had never seen her with a baby before. Which he came to realize he hadn't. It struck a nerve somehow.

"Hello, Draco," Andromeda pulled his attention back, smiling over her dumb-struck nephew.

"Aunt Andromeda," Draco said with an absent nod but couldn't pull his eyes from the hallway, down which Hermione had disappeared.

"She's good with Teddy," Andromeda commented further, joining him in his futile staring down a dark hallway. "You couldn't have picked a much better mother in the making."

When Draco inhaled deeply and shot her a dark look, Andromeda grinned, and said: "Narcissa is in the dining room," dropping all pretences with a jerk of her head.

Draco nodded back and turn to the left Andromeda had indicated.

His mother was sitting at the table, wringing her hands in front of her face and looking out the window over the top of her hands. When she saw him come in, she stopped immediately, and dropped her hands.

"Draco!"

"Mother," he said with a nod.

"You came," Narcissa Malfoy said quietly.

"Another thing you have to thank Hermione for," Draco pressed through his clenched jaw.

Narcissa lowered her head to the polished surface of the table. "You wouldn't have come for my sake?"

Draco didn't see a reason to go easy on the woman who hadn't protected him enough from Voldemort. "Not necessarily," he said with an angry stare.

Narcissa nodded sadly. "I see. Well, I'm glad you came anyway."

Draco said down and waited for her to start the conversation. After a minute or two, when he realized he could spend the time so much better with Hermione, he broke the silence with a solemn "So ...".

"So?" Narcissa mumbled.

"What do you want, mother?" Draco puffed.

His mother looked at him as if she had to gather the strength to say what she wanted to say. Just when he was going to jump up and join Hermione and Andromeda with Teddy in the kitchen (he couldn't wait to see more of Hermione's interaction with the baby), Narcissa asked: "Are you in love with her, then, Draco?"

Drawn from his thoughts about Hermione and babies (he couldn't explore deeper why he was so curious about Hermione's way to handle babies) he forced himself to pay attention to his mother across from him. Wiping his face, he wasn't ready to answer her inquiry. It shouldn't really concern her, if he loved Hermione or not. His choice of spending time with her should be enough. Why did it make a difference if he loved her? So he just sent a look of exasperation to the table.

"Draco?" he heard his mother again.

"Yes, for Merlin's sake," he blurted out, cornered in his thoughts. "Of course, I am. In love, up to my neck, head over heels, enamoured, sweet, crazy for her, wrapped around her finger, crushed, the whole nine yards, the full monty, irrevocably, two hearts beating as one."

Narcissa inhaled sharply. "It was just a question."

"No, mother," Draco snarled back. "It was not just a question. You were looking for an excuse, for exculpation for my being with her, for a reason how she could possibly have me wrapped around her finger. Like I hadn't been paying attention, bewitched by her feminine guiles and voila, she has me under her thumb, powerful witch that she is, where many other pureblood girls have failed. And you can't accept that she could have managed what many a pureblood girl rightfully couldn't. That's what it was. As if I was a hanswurst who escaped many witches as a happy bachelor and fell for the one girl I shouldn't have."

"Well, you did," Narcissa impressed on him.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, mother, grow out of it. Why don't you understand? There is nothing wrong with Hermione Granger, except that she doesn't have a pureblood pedigree. And I don't care. I stopped caring when Voldemort sent me out at age sixteen to kill the most powerful wizard in the world under threat of killing my parents should I not succeed. A suicide mission. And I turned to caring for the only one person I could trust not to exploit my situation: which is her."

"What did she do?"

"She didn't do anything particular. She was just there when most others weren't. We had an encounter one night …" Draco couldn't continue. How could he explain to his mother what Hermione had done to him and for him without making it sound cheap or easy?

"An encounter? So, she did bewitch you with her body."

"No!" Draco yelled before he reined himself in again. "She didn't. She barely touched me. And yet, she was there and she cared enough to not leave me alone to my misery."

"So, she didn't touch you at all?" Narcissa clarified with a frown.

Draco shook his head. This was going so wrong. "No, she did touch me." When his mother's face set as if he had confirmed something for her, he pressed on. "But it was a caring touch. Barely there. Nothing sexual. Just … compassionate. The way you touch a dying person, so they won't be alone in their last moment before their journey."

Narcissa's face hardened. "You were hardly dying, you could have completed your task and…"

"Mother, stop it!" Draco had enough. "Just stop it. I knew you wouldn't understand. That's the reason why she had to convince me to talk to you. I knew you would be so set in your ways …"

"No, I'm not," his mother interrupted him. "I'm trying to understand. I am better educated in the ways a woman can capture a man and I want to understand how she captured you without insidiousness."

Draco calmed himself with a deep breath. "She didn't "capture" me. Not the way other witches try to catch the Malfoy heir. I fell for her. She didn't want me at all. I had to convince her in the end that we were in love. She wouldn't accept it. She thought, like you, that we were bewitched. That the magic made us feel something we didn't really and that it wasn't real."

"Hm," Narcissa made, pulling a face.

"And now she wants me for me. Not because of who I was in the past but because of the man I am and have become."

"Oh" Narcissa made, her face softening to a frown.

"She still doesn't care for the Malfoy fortune. She didn't ask me once what it entails, …"

"Well, she's probably seen enough of the Manor to know…" Narcissa fell into his spill.

"She doesn't care, mother," Draco interrupted her. "But she cares about me, the man in me. And the magic in me, because it's connected to hers. And to her. Essences combined."

Narcissa's eyes glowed. "Ah, so, it's power she wants …"

Draco wiped his face again. "Mother, shut up. Just … shut up. I could probably get her to sign a pre-nuptial, should she ever agree to marry me, which is nowhere near clear for the future. But I don't want to. Should I ever be so lucky that she agrees to marry me, at any one point in the future, I'll sign everything over to her that she wants. Should she want your bed in particular, I would kick you out of it. Just so you know where you stand. And I will wait for many, many years for her to make up her mind. I'm lost to the female population anyway. They just have no appeal for me anymore."

"Oh," Narcissa made again, lowering her gaze to the table.

"Why is it such a bad thing?" Draco in turn tried to understand his mother's longing to find fault in Hermione, aside from her pedigree. "You yourself told me to go find the witch I want, and screw the Malfoy traditions. You actually told me that I could change the Malfoy traditions, because I was effectively the head of the house."

Narcissa shook her head. "It's not a bad thing, especially when you are really, actually so deeply in love as you tell me. I'm happy for you. It's just so contrary to everything we've been living for the past, I don't know, decades."

"Yes," Draco agreed. "That it is."

Both sat in silence and listened to the voices drifting over from the kitchen: Teddy's squealing, Andromeda's voice and Hermione's laughter. Draco sighed. He wanted to go over and bathe in the warmth of Hermione's laugher. Badly.

"You have to understand, mother, that people do not simply split into wizards or witches and muggles. You know that. You even differentiate between muggleborn wizards and witches, half-bloods and purebloods. But you know that even amongst purebloods there are good and bad, wheat und chaff. It just doesn't make sense to classify people that way."

He looked at his mother pleadingly. When he saw her looking at him, listening, he continued: "I understood that before Voldemort's fall," he ignored his mother's wince and went on. "But the magic we received in the adjunction drove the point home. The magic connected a muggleborn witch and a pureblood wizard at the end of a war that fought this exact thing; a witch and a wizard who played essential roles in this war. The magic showed us how wrong this war was; that magic is not about breeding it and preserving it through interbreeding and teaching only a select group and trying to create a super-race of specially bred and taught wizards. Magic is about balancing the gift of life, of sharing, teaching and shaping and enhancing, adding and embracing everybody, the ones born with magic, and caring for the ones who are not. Because to the power of life, and magic is a part of that, we are not that different after all, and we all have our place in the game of life. The ones without magic and the ones with it."

Looking up at his mother's wide eyes, he added his last few words: "So, once you understand this, once you open your mind to the fact that everybody is not so different, you will understand that I love Hermione because of who she is, my equal, my counterpart, my other half, and I don't care a jota where she comes from. And you shouldn't either."

Narcissa Malfoy's eyes swimming in tears, she managed to ask: "Is she really that perfect for you?"

Draco nodded deliberately. "Yes, she is. And I couldn't extract myself from her if my life depended on it. It would be like the sun went down on me. And what's life without sunlight? Somewhat dead. The way it would have been under Voldemort's regime."

His mother pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her robe and dabbed her eyes carefully. When she had dried her eyes and gained some equilibrium, she looked over to where the sounds of life came from the kitchen and said soberly: "Alright, Draco. Alright."

Draco accepted it with a nod. Nothing else was said on the topic. But a few weeks later, Narcissa Malfoy was seen holding up robes at Madam Malkin's that were certainly not her usual style or her colouring. And Hermione was seen wearing those same robes, perfectly fitted, to a dinner with Draco and his mother at the Manor.

**.**

**Hermione's POV:**

What a sight, a triangle of power, Draco in the lead, flanked by Harry on his right and Ron on the left. The blond, the dark and the red. Magnificent. My heart did one hundred miles an hour, just seeing them coming to me, my two best friends and the man I loved.

Until Draco stood in front of me and said: "Granger, we are going to get your parents."

That's when my heart fell. When I got my stunned, open mouth back under control I swallowed and replied: "Well, give me a few minutes to pack a bag of necessities."

Draco shook his head. "No, Hermione, we are going now, and you are not going to back out. Or find any more excuses. We have a portkey to South-western Australia and it'll go in two minutes."

"But…," I tried a meagre protest.

He took my chin and gave me a light kiss. "You know you want it. Let's go."

My parents were upset. Once we found them and removed the memory charms and set them down to tell the whole story, they were terribly angry. They scolded me as if there was no tomorrow. Harry and Ron sat by saying nothing, ducking their heads, but Draco watched the scene with increasing agitation, until he couldn't take it anymore to watch me grow paler by the second and stood up.

"Enough," he growled.

He confronted them with his worst Malfoy sneer and barked in their faces.

"You have obviously no idea what you owe your daughter for hiding you. You can have no idea what Death Eaters would have done with you if they'd captured you. You would have begged to die, you would have begged to kill your own child just to escape the horrors of their treatment of you." He pointed at my father. "You would have had to watch your wife be…" He stopped mid-sentence, because Harry barked: "Draco." My father paled. I was quiet, too distraught that my worst nightmare had come true, my parents being upset for what I had done.

Draco ignored Harry's intervention, but stopped painting the horrors.

"I'll happily explain to you what exactly they would have done, but not until we got you back to England, back into Hermione's life, had a cup of tea and after you thanked your daughter for saving you so spectacularly. Brilliant piece of magic for a witch of her age, if I may say so."

My parents were stunned. They knew Harry and Ron, but of course they'd been unaware that I had a knight in shining armour, who stood up so defiantly to defend me.

"Your daughter is the bravest and most courageous human being I've ever met. And yes, that counts Harry Freaking Potter, too. And I would thank you for raising such a perfect woman but I admit, I am rather angry with you at the moment," Draco finished, then turned around and walked out of the door of my parent's house, slamming the door shut behind him.

Harry got up and put a hand on my shoulder and looking at me, I could see that he was searching for words for half a minute. Finally, he swallowed and said: "I knew he loved you, but wow, Hermione. Wow." He looked at me wide-eyed, and patted my shoulder once, then let go to go after Draco.

Which left Ron and me to deal with my parent's shock. And we all know how Ron deals with emotionally heavy situations.

"Erm," he said. "I'll go see if they don't do anything stupid, no?"

He looked at me pleading to let him out of the situation. I shook my head. He was going to stay there with me.

"Dad?" I said. No answer.

"Mum?" My mum looked up and managed a small smile through her shocked tears. Then she stood up and came over to me to pull me into a tight embrace.

"Who's that strapping blond young man?" she whispered in my ear.

"Draco Malfoy," I whispered back.

She pulled back and stared at me wide-eyed. "THE Draco Malfoy?" she asked, stumped, remembering my complaints of him while we were in school.

I nodded, biting my lips.

She pulled me back. "You have to tell me all about it. Once we get back."

"Hmhm," I heard my man clear his throat. Harry and Draco darkened the door way. "How long will you need to pack?"

.

.

**Harry's POV:**

Draco told me later about his "conversation" with his father.

Lucius spat: "The mudblood? You are fucking the mudblood?"

"Father!" Draco reprimanded him sharply. "If you ever want to see your son again, you will refrain from calling her that."

Lucius scoffed. "I have no son. My son wouldn't consort with a mudblood."

Draco countered with a grim smile. "Oh, I don't consort with her, father. I love her. Something you never understood. And never will, I believe." He chuckled.

"And you've got it the wrong way round, father. I am your son and nothing in the world can change that. I don't know if I have any illegal brothers or sisters," here he waited for his father to shake his head of stringy strands of hair soberly, "but I am the Malfoy heir. You on the other hand are in prison and will remain here for a long time. It's my turn. Even though you are not dead, it will be my duty to manage the estates and properties of the Malfoys of Wiltshire. In effect, therefore, I am the owner, and I will do what I want. So, if you don't want me to sell it all off to please my "mudblood", you behave a little more cordially toward her."

When Lucius Malfoy whimpered, "You wouldn't…" Draco paused for a minute to let his father catch his breath.

Then he continued with his eyes squeezed to slits. "You don't want to test that, father. Believe me. It's a new world out there. Nobody needs 50 estates all over the world. But I need the woman I love. And she needs her friends, other "mudbloods" and "blood traitors". If we don't want to die out as a wizarding race, we will have to mix the bloodlines."

When Lucius kept silent, burrowing his face under his filthy hair in his hands, Draco added the last bit of information he wanted his father to have. "We are connected, Hermione and I. The magic chose us to create something powerful together. It can't be wrong to be associated with her, when the magic itself designated us for that task."

Lucius showed his curiosity only in raising his head. He didn't look at his only son. Draco hadn't expected him to. "What is your task?" he wanted to know.

Draco smiled again. "To create the counter spells for the Unforgivables."

Lucius nodded. "That's a tall order."

Draco shrugged. "But not impossible. We've already started. And we are making good progress testing it on spiders."

Lucius nodded again. After a minute of silence, he asked: "Will that raise the Malfoy reputation, when you work with Hermione Granger?"

Draco snorted. "Most likely, but you know that's not the reason, why I'm doing it."

Lucius sighed, eyeing his prison wall. "You could have lied to me to spare me."

Draco answered coldly. He had enough of his father's two-faced games. "I don't want to lie. I don't want to spare you. I've lied and been lied to all my life. I'm done. So, either you accept what I do, for once without trying to take it out of my hands and improve it, or you will know what loneliness really is when you get out of here in twenty years and have no place to go. Have me sent an owl with your decision."

With a last nod to the shell of his once impressively powerful and handsome father, Draco turned and walked back through the grey and repugnant hallways of Azkaban prison. He didn't hear his father's last words:

"I'll think about it, my son. At least, you've grown a spine and a pair."

But he received an owl a few months later that made him grimace irritated but smile as well. His father still had time to really adjust his attitude before he got out of Azkaban. It was a start to give his reluctant blessings.

**.**

_A/N: I know there are still parts missing. As I'm filling in the scenes for the Epilogue, they become longer and longer as usual, and thus, I have to split it. There's some work with the compow coming up and a ball and another dinner at Harry's and the final scene._

_Last chance to let me know what else you think they need to go through in the Epilogue. To round their coming together up. And to answer open questions._

_I won't make any more guesses for when that's coming, though. Work will swallow me again for the next weeks. And I can't think about my story when I have to set up a complicated experiment. So, hang on, guys._

_Cheers_

_M_


	47. Interlude

_A/N: WARNING! HIGHLY GRAPHICAL. Not for sensitive readers!_

_Just something that occurred to me while driving from work. I never properly made something out of his nightmares._

_Read this while listening to "Love the way you lie" by Eminem ft. Rihanna. On repeat, until you finished. It gives you the right state of mind._

_._

**Interlude **

**(at one time between Hermione's discharge from St. Mungo's and the end)**

.

.

„Draco?"

Hermione stepped into his suite of rooms at the Manor, where she knew he had gone to pick up some more of his things to deposit in her apartment. She found him standing in front of his ceiling to floor windows, staring motionless.

She closed the door behind her and walked halfway across the room before she addressed him again: "Draco?"

No response. He was standing still, his back turned, staring out the window.

This was odd. He knew she would be coming if he took too long to get back to her place. She approached him carefully, looking left and right for anything unusual. Despite their intimacy, this was Draco Malfoy after all, and she was on his territory. But there was nothing. Nothing but the strange silence in the air. She realized what it was: she was so used to be in touch with his magic by now, that she missed the feeling when it was absent. As it was now. He must have withdrawn it, deep into himself.

Standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder, she asked again: "Draco? Are you alright?" His face was a complete blank mask, the eyes bulging, his breath short, his hands clenched at his sides.

She felt more than she saw the tremble going through him. And then another. And another, while he was still staring blankly out the window to infinity.

"What's wrong?" she whispered for the last time. Because when he turned to her, she saw the horror in his eyes and she knew. She knew because she had seen herself with flashbacks, flashbacks to the war, seen her waxen face and blank eyes, the sweat on her forehead and the shivers running through her. She knew how it felt to be completely locked-in the memories, the helplessness of reliving, of re-experiencing the horrors that froze your brain. She knew how the draw felt, between wanting to shove the memories away to never feel again and to re-experience them, for perhaps after this time one was able to forget.

She knew, and therefore she was not surprised when he pounced on her, sweeping her off her feet and pressing her against the wall behind her.

After a brief moment of shock, Hermione ignored the iron hard grip he held her in, which would surely leave bruises on her arms, and surveyed his face; the face captured in the horrors its mind saw. Deep in his cold grey eyes was the Draco she knew. He was still in there, it was just a flashback, and he needed to shake it off; with whatever means. Hermione took a deep breath and assured herself that if worse came to worse she would be able to repel him with their compow. She had access to it, even if he withdrew.

She had barely braced herself mentally when he shook again and pressed his body against hers to control his shivers. She tried to get her arms around his back to hold him close, but his body was gone before she managed and then she felt his teeth at her neck and his hips undulating against her.

Again, she wasn't surprised. This was Draco's modus operandi: if you can't control it, fuck it to death – and then control it. She had no problem with it. His fucking abilities were one of a kind.

And so she just inhaled deeply when his teeth pinched her soft skin and wandered everywhere they could reach: her ear, her throat, her face, her lips, her nose, her chin, her shoulder. When she got her hand up, he even bit her finger. But all without drawing blood, just hard enough to qualify as a real bite. All the while pressing his loin into her and holding her tight against the wall. She felt the steel hard rod behind his trousers, and knew what was to come.

It wasn't gentle. Far from it. Hermione wasn't even sure whether his bites and teethy nips and fiercely grabbing hands were supposed to be enticing, in a rough way, but she doubted it. It looked and felt more as if he was clawing, biting and tearing his way out of an abyss.

On his next exhale he groaned – and then let her down to free his hands. He freed them to grip the fringe of her jacket and rip it down, then her blouse, next her trousers and her knickers, then his own in the same quick order.

When he had bared them both, he resumed his previous position, pressed against her belly, pressing her against the wall in the back, only now she felt his rod skin on skin. He looked at her but not really connected their gazes. It was more as if he was trying to connect to something familiar but wasn't succeeding. After a minute of failing to connect, he crashed his lips on hers and attacked her mouth.

While trying to smother her by brutal kissing, he sunk his hands in her ample locks and held her head through them, sifting through her strands. He pulled it, but not in the way he liked her pulling his hair. His fingers entangled in her strands of hair and pulled her head back against the pressure on her scalp. It didn't really hurt, but she let her head fall back with a gasp because it wasn't comfortable. The downside of it, Draco had soon realized, was that her lips were pulled away from his as well. He let go of her hair to be able to pull her face back to his and continued to devour her mouth with wet sucking licks and bites.

His undulations becoming more and more violent while biting her face, he managed to wrangle his cock between her legs. And such were the dynamics between them that she opened up for him. It didn't matter that he was brutal and that he attacked her, basically. She knew whatever was going on in his head was eating him up and he needed to get rid of it. If he wanted to pump it into her, she would let him. Such were Draco's ways that this was his outlet. She knew he wouldn't hurt her intentionally, and she could protect herself. Whatever she could help him with, she would. And that's why she opened her legs to let him in.

Only she was hindered by her trousers around her legs, preventing that she could spread them entirely or wrap around his waist. After three or four insufficient thrusts, where he couldn't keep it in because of the angle, he pulled her off the wall and deposited her on the floor. Luckily, his rooms had quite a plush carpet. It wasn't uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable was the way he tried to enter her again, while she was still trying to pull her leg out of her jeans and boots. But she finally managed one leg and finally, finally was able to take him in.

Knowing what was to come, and feeling the way she felt for him, had helped her to moisture her nether regions, so that even entirely without foreplay she had enough lubrication to make it painless. Because he was not set for her sexual bliss.

As soon as he had sunk into her again, he pulled out, only to ram back in. And again and again. This was not about sexual bliss, she understood, and had anticipated. This was an exorcism. It was brutal, it was primal, and it was without mercy. No mercy for him. If she could show him the mercy she felt, perhaps he would eventually surface.

And so she held still and let him pump, shove into her, bumping her backward with his movements, likely causing some carpet burns on her back. Mentally, she shrugged. These were easily remedied. This wasn't painful. It was rough and it was vulgar, there was no beauty to it. It was ugly and brutal and violent, but so where the memories that held him captured, she figured. She would certainly get no pleasure out of this one, but what did it matter? It couldn't all be sunshine. Hermione was in no pain and she wanted him to get rid of his. If she could help alleviate some of his darkness, that was enough light for both of them.

Draco worked himself up enough. She knew this wasn't really his way to bang a woman. He drew a lot of pleasure out of the woman's pleasure he was with. So, this wasn't really pleasing for him, either. But she knew his mind wouldn't have allowed for pleasure seeking anyway. This was about drawing out the horrors that poisoned his mind. If he climaxed, she knew, his seed would take the poison with it. Into her body. She knew she could take it, though. She strongly suspected that he knew, too.

Hermione suspected that Draco knew and expected that she would take his poison, his pains, and crush them amidst her legs, her feminity, in her womb. Behind his layers of horror she believed he knew exactly how she would annihilate whatever pained him.

And that was the reason why he pounded into her as if he wanted to cleave her; right down the middle. She let him. Hermione dug her hands into his hair, draped the free leg over his back, and scraped his scalp, the way she knew he appreciated. He moaned against her throat but kept on pounding.

She felt when he was coming close. She knew by the way he stretched over her head, to free his loins for shooting straight, for his hips to drive deep. She heard his forced exhalation against the side of her head. And then she felt him expulse the evil essence.

Warmth flooding into her, and she knew what to do. Hermione embraced her arms around his shoulders and pulled him deeper into her neck. She took her other leg, still clad in her trousers and boot, and draped it over his arse while he was tensing into her.

She pulled him into her, embraced him, sheltered him. And he thanked her by heavy expulsions of breaths against her neck, increasing in intensity, turning into sobs.

And while Hermione was pulling him into her body, as much as was physically possible, she experienced the lifting of spirits that is so typical for a climax, except without the bodily sensations. A spiritual climax, so to say. And she knew that the evil spawn was taken care off. She would have to go to the bathroom later, though, to take care of the earthly remains.

For now, she had to take care of the sobbing male on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed.

"Shhhh," she tried to calm him. She knew no reason to apologize for.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "Did I hurt you? I know I hurt you. I'm sorry," he said again, breathing heavily against her neck, shaken from his deeds and the exhaustion.

"No, Draco," Hermione said. "You didn't hurt me. I would have made it known if you did."

"Oh, Merlin. How could I not? This … in my head," he gagged.

"Shhhh," she made again. "I know, shhhh." She stroked his head, his fine, silky hair.

"I love you," he said, through his sobs. "By Merlin, I love you."

"I know," she said. "I love you, too."

That stilled him. "I know," he said. "How could you not?"

Hermione smiled. She was going to live well with his ambiguous statements.

He loved her. How could he not? It had nothing to do with magic.


	48. Epilogue part 3

_A/N: Did you realize that it's been over a year since I started putting this story on fanfiction? I meant to put this part up at the one year anniversary, but I missed the day. I thought it was the 29__th __of September. And I wouldn't have had it ready for the 27__th__, in any case. So, here are the last few pieces. Still, let me know if you miss something._

_And it became long again. The more I worked on it, the more I realized what else needed to go in and so, it grew. But I didn't want to cut off the end, because that is the ultimate explanation. In this is also the ballroom scene for MrsMoony86._

_And I almost forgot the thanks for reviews: a great big thank you goes to the fabulous Rumaan. Thank you, dear, I really appreciate your help. Other thanks to Anon and Audheartbooks. _

_EXPLICITNESS WARNING – Don't like, don't read._

_Aaaaand: on we go…_

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**Epilogue part 3**

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**Harry's POV cont'd:**

They let the scandal of Malfoy's disengagement die down at the beginning of the year and started working on their newly discovered use of the compow. After extensive research and tentative trials of guiding their mutual magic to work on foreign spells, they practiced on Ginny and me. They had already done the sending out of their magic, on inanimate objects or magic as in the wards, but resolving it on other humans posed a new challenge.

Ginny and I put the Petrificus' onto each other and they send out their compow to resolve it. It took them about two weeks to manage. The difficult part about this was to navigate around the affected person's magic. While they noted changes in their own magic and the compow easily, to differentiate between a different person's magic and foreign magic put on said person took some practise. The training room was plastered with pillows for weeks, so we wouldn't fall too hard.

They also practiced taking incoming spells in a stasis like state within Hermione's magic and work it with a precise instrument from Malfoy. They had decided that they wanted to use the compow to resolve the curses first, to familiarize themselves with each structure, before they went on to painstakingly research and create the counter curses, which they rightfully assumed could take years.

They couldn't try each and every curse on humans. Hermione in particular wouldn't put any volunteers through them. There was the issue of being under a curse, even if it was for research purposes. So, they worked on spiders (which kept Ron from visiting their place of work, to everybody's relief). After months of regarding and resolving the structure of minor curses, they went on to the really tricky curses, their actual objects.

Naturally, they started with the Cruciatus. After weeks and weeks of putting spiders in pain (hindered by the fact that Hermione couldn't stand seeing even spiders under the Cruciatus for longer than 20 seconds, which Malfoy accepted oddly docile), Neville walked up to them and volunteered to take it. It had been long enough since his seventh year at Hogwarts when he had suffered a few Cruciati at the hands of the Carrows and their minions. The glance he received from Malfoy was absolutely worth seeing. Even though he sneered in a way that showed his contempt how somebody could volunteer for pain, there was something below that sneer that indicated recognition; the recognition of somebody who was equally willing to take pain for somebody else or for a good cause. I later learned that Malfoy had volunteered himself, but since both he and Hermione were needed to work their magic it wasn't possible for him to take it.

I volunteered to put it on Neville. It took me quite some determination to get myself to do it, but I did. I pictured Bellatrix in my mind and focused all my hate on her. Hermione and Malfoy had practised how to resolve it on the spiders. We were ready.

Hermione was biting her lip in nervousness, but when Malfoy took her hand and stroked over it, she took a deep breath and focused. Then she nodded to me.

When I crucified Neville, it took them about twenty seconds to finish the curse. Neville later complained that he hadn't really felt anything and that he wanted to do it again. One could see though that he lied and was shaken, even after that short time. As I was shaken that I had been able to crucify a person, a friend even; even though it had been necessary. All in the name of getting rid of the blasted curses.

All during their months of preparation for this day, Hermione and Malfoy had to take frequent breaks, because although weaving the compow was energizing in a way, as they told me, the actual work and constant concentration around the spell analysis, holding the stasis and detection of foreign magic was exhausting. After the first time coming across them in a compromising position in the Ministry library, I made it a habit to stomp, whistle or clear my throat as loudly as I could when approaching their suspected hideouts. And I encouraged all friends and family to do the same.

When they had dissolved their first Cruciatus on a human being, i.e. Neville, Malfoy grabbed Hermione and lifted her up and pushed her against the next wall and kissed her that I felt the wall would give way. This was the first time that he kissed her openly in our presence (not counting the accidental surprises). We didn't stay for long, Neville and I. When Hermione wrapped her arms and legs around him and kissed him back as if she wanted to suck him dry and they started to make sounds as if they were quite enjoying it, I grabbed the shaking Neville and dragged him out of the room with me. Closing the door behind me, I heard cloth rip and a deep moan from Hermione that I never needed to hear from my best friend. We didn't go back in the room until after Malfoy and Hermione had joined us a few hours later, and locked it with a _Colloportus _from the outside, so nobody would come across them accidentally.

I finally understood in that moment that they couldn't help themselves. They were crazy about being close to each other; as close as you can get, that is. Malfoy was and (according to many females) always had been a rather sexually driven male (not that there was anything wrong with it, as any young man would attest), so it didn't come across as awkward, that he moved with Hermione on a very sexual level (only the crude display of it). For Hermione, though, it was rather unusual.

But I understood on that day that it wasn't actual "sex" for them, or Hermione would have been able to tell Malfoy to back off, as she would have never done it in front of me. It was rather a catch-up of their physical bodies to what their magical essences had achieved; a complete amalgamation. The complete immersion in each other, magically, bridged by magic, drew them to fuse their bodies as close as they could get and channel the excess of energy they were working with, which made it so exceptional (from what I could overhear) for both of them. Not that they didn't enjoy it or were coerced. On the contrary, according to the sighs and moans they usually made, they enjoyed it a great deal (I've overheard them often enough to be a good judge of it, cue the eye-roll). But it drove once again the point home that we were magical beings, magical humans, and that a) it didn't matter how we came into our magic as it was a part of us, and b) that it affected us to the soul level. As if Voldemort's magical soul splitting hadn't already made that point.

Their magical profiles, abilities and personalities reflected the creative powers of life and that made it feel right for them. They filled each other's voids with their intellectual stimulation and opposing personalities. Additionally they were completely hot for each other through the desire to achieve a complete fusion of essence and body and it made it so very enjoyable for both. And it had nothing to do with destiny. Here were two people connecting well on every level conceivable. And as her friends, we could have opposed her connection with Draco Malfoy as much as we had liked, but it would never change the fact that they simply were the perfect counterpart for each other. And it had only been obscured by our "man-made" artificial society lines, of purebloods and muggleborns, of Voldemort supporters and opponents. They were so right together that they created magic.

Once they had mastered resolving curses on human beings, they were able to isolate the magical patterns and could go on to create their counter spells. Many hours of research, hitting the books, and hours of training, twisting, tweaking the magic into new shapes, went into this. And as expected, it took them a few more years to find a way to eliminate the Imperious and Cruciatus curses entirely by stable counter spells, which were _Voluntas_ and _Assoleo_, respectively. And they found one for the Katatonici spell (_Reanimo_), with the unexpected help of Gregory Goyle, even though there were only few wizards and witches left who could actually cast this spell. Hermione didn't want to risk anybody having to suffer from it again. Malfoy whole-heartedly agreed.

It took many more years to do the same with the Avada Kedavra and was hindered of course by the fact that you couldn't quite explore it properly. The counter spell was _Pervivo _and it was accompanied by a shielding, circular hand movement meant to repel the oncoming curse and enclose the life force to be saved. It took them so long to find the counter spells because they had to figure out the exact mechanics on how to make the counter spell work: was it about shielding the life force, was it about blocking or removing the oncoming curse, or was it a matter of strengthening the protected person? Each of these questions took months to analyse and more months to rebuke (or accept). In any case, ithad to be cast before the spell hit you. Once you were dead, there was no coming back.

But they came out as a potential couple for the world to see at the One-Year-Anniversary Ministry Ball of the Final Battle of Voldemort's defeat, May 2nd, 1999.

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Narcissa Malfoy let her gaze sweep over the careful, not too exuberant decoration of the ballroom in the Ministry. There was soft music flowing in the air, but nobody was dancing. The one-year anniversary of the Final Battle was certainly a day to remember but not necessarily to celebrate and be jolly. While the defeat of the Dark Lord was reason to rejoice, May 2nd would forever stand for great unnecessary losses, not triumph.

She understood. While the Dark Lord would have celebrated the same day, had he won, with raucous revels and the torture of helpless people, likely muggles who had done nothing wrong but being born without magic, these people, the "winners" of this war felt anything but happy about it. If anything, they felt angry that there even was such an event, and that they couldn't experience it with all their beloved. Narcissa bit the inside of her cheek. She perfectly understood. She would have had to watch her son destroying himself piece by piece by following outrageous orders from a maniac, had said monster succeeded. And she was nothing but grateful that she didn't have to. Even if it meant that pureblood supremacy was over. It took some seeing to, the hard thinking about what to do with their prejudiced ideas, some hysterical outbursts and good crying, some personal blackmail and emotional thumb screws, but once she had reached the conclusion that her family was ultimately better off without the monster, she had made peace with it.

All in all, she much preferred the sober decoration done by the Ministry over some garish green and silver while you couldn't overhear desperate people screaming.

"I wished I didn't have to be here. I feel almost guilty that we cannot celebrate sufficiently on this day." Astralia Parkinson approached from the left.

Narcissa gave her a welcoming smile. "Astralia. How's Nathan doing?"

Her friend shrugged. "As well as is to be expected, sitting in Azkaban."

Narcissa turned to watch two other women approaching from the right. "Yes, I suppose so."

"Narcissa, so good to see you. How do you do?"

Narcissa inclined her head in greeting. "As well as can be expected."

Melina Zabini and Imelda Greengrass came to stand on her right. "Ah, yes, I suppose I am lucky that my husband is still at home," Imelda Greengrass announced.

Narcissa and her fellow grass widow looked straight ahead to a gaggle of people around Harry Potter and his friends. One was not supposed to react to anything pertaining their husbands' extended visit of the Wizarding prison.

Melina Zabini, however, did have no such compunctions, being without a husband for the moment (The last one had snuffed it the previous year. Nobody knew why exactly, and Melina quite kept it at that). "Imelda," she scolded her friend. "It isn't prudent to speak of such matters here."

"It is however prudent to be here," Narcissa shot back at her impudent friend.

"If only it wasn't," Imelda couldn't stop herself saying.

Her friends shushed her. "Be quiet," Melina said.

"Oh, please," Imelda scoffed. "Like I can't cast a Silencing charm around us?"

"And what good would that do, if a) it can be broken easily and b) people would be curious why we don't want to be overheard? Imelda, are you sure you were a Slytherin?" Narcissa remarked drily.

Imelda huffed but was saved from further saying anything when Hermione Granger ambled by.

Seeing her, Narcissa couldn't suppress a small amount of pride wallowing up in her. She grabbed Hermione's well clad arm and pulled her over to her friends.

"Hermione, dear, let me introduce you to Melina Zabini, Imelda Greengrass, and Astralia Parkinson." She indicated with her hand which witch was who.

Her pride rested on the fact that under her (not so subtle) tutelage, Hermione now found a decent amount of quality robes in her closet. She still went to work in her jeans and voluptuous jumpers, but for dinner and other social calls at the Manor she dressed in decent robes for Draco's sake; and was rewarded with his eyes roving over her and eating her up each and every time. Narcissa was quite certain what aspired between the two, once they returned home. It wasn't hard to guess, even when Hermione always tried to salvage some composure in Narcissa's presence. Home was still Hermione's apartment for most days, but Draco had slowly whined the compliance out of Hermione to search for a bigger living space. It was to be a step in between, Narcissa was certain, before they (hopefully) married and moved into the Manor to raise their children. Because that Draco would marry no other girl or woman was a given. A mother knew such things about her child.

And for a ball like this, Hermione had worked her magic. Nobody could say that she wasn't pretty if she wanted to be. Her delicate features were accented such that every coincidental glance at her face got stuck for an extended second on her gleaming warm eyes, and down the soft sweep of her cheeks to her pink lips. Her hair up-done exposed her neck regally and the midnight blue robe she wore made her creamy skin stand out. Narcissa was quite satisfied with her (potential) future daughter-in-law. Because if she knew her son, he would do his utmost to pull this witch in, after he'd already given her his heart. And while she at one point had thought it easier to stick to the routine of continuing to marry purebloods, she understood that this could not continue, for all their sakes. She would do her utmost to make Hermione one of their own. Luckily, the girl wasn't behind her Draco in intelligence.

Following Draco's example in his introduction to Andromeda, Hermione spoke the correct words of a formal introduction. Narcissa was as pleased as can be.

Melina Zabini didn't show her surprise and graciously inclined her head in greeting: "Ah, Ms Granger, Blaise spoke so highly of you." Her smile was almost genuine, if a little unsure, but Narcissa knew her friend better than that. She glared over Hermione's shoulder. Melina shrugged when Hermione turned to the next witch.

Pansy Parkinson's mother took the focus away by saying: "Yes, so did Pansy. You are close to Draco, aren't you?"

Hermione tried to downplay it. "We work together at the Ministry, yes," she carefully held back, but then she blushed. Narcissa sighed. Hermione just wasn't cut out for a Slytherin political game. But perhaps that wasn't so bad. She had other qualities.

Narcissa patted her arm consolingly. "Now, now, dear, you are perfectly entitled to say that there's a lot more connecting you to Draco. It cannot stay a secret much longer. One just has to look at you two to clue in."

This little speech had the effect that Imelda Greengrass, who had strenuously held back while being introduced, hissed at the young witch: "You. It's you who has stolen Draco away from my Astoria, isn't it? I never believed for a second their drivel about her and Theo Nott. You stole him and made him break his betrothal to my family."

"Imelda," Narcissa sliced viciously over her friend's words with a tone that could have frozen fires from twenty yards off.

Before she could say more, Draco had appeared at Hermione's side. Whether he had been on his way already or had sensed the tide turning against Hermione, he suddenly stood next to her like an apparition. As a grown young man ever an impressive presence, he towered next to Hermione and put his arms around her waist, not too possessively but definitely protecting, and growled: "Imelda, always a pleasure."

Checking Hermione's face, which showed a little bemusement from the vicious attack, but not much surprise and certainly no fear, he carried on: "But I have to bereave you of Granger's charming presence. The Minister is calling us over. Mrs Zabini, Mrs Parkinson." He nodded to the mothers of his best friends and then pulled Hermione away with him.

Walking away, Narcissa saw her only son bending with a hardened gaze to the slim witch next to him and whisper in her ear. She was fairly certain that he'd asked her if she was alright from the way Hermione looked up at him and nodded with a smile.

Watching them move on, Hermione's hand held tightly in her son's, Narcissa bent to berate her friend: "Imelda, get a grip on yourself. It can't be helped that your daughter chose another wizard to love. It's not Draco's fault."

"I'll tell you, it's not Draco's fault," said witch scoffed. "He was legally betrothed to Astoria. She had no business of falling for a Nott. He did something to his bond. I don't know how he did it, but I will find out. And then I'll get him back."

Narcissa's expression could have competed with the Wicked Witch of the West – and would have won; only she was much prettier – and not green. "I hate to say it, Imelda, because you've been one of my oldest friends, but I feel that perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing that he was able to sever his bond to your family."

Imelda Greengrass' shriek went silent when Melina quickly cast a _Silencio_ as soon as she opened her mouth. After she moved her lips without making any words come out, Melina lifted the spell on her friend with a sigh. Why she still was friends with such an unhinged woman was beyond her. But there were only so and so many truly pureblooded women if one wanted to preserve one's status. Perhaps the Malfoy's were up to something, though, when they started to soften their line of acquaintances. It was certainly more entertaining in mixed company. And not so shrieky.

"How dare you? Astralia, how can you let her talk to me like that?"

"Like what?" The Parkinson matriarch answered coolly to the shrieking woman on her left. "Like you weren't trying to force a connection to the Malfoy family at all costs? Dare you deny it?"

Baffled at her friends reprieve, Imelda stared open mouthed. Astralia carried on: "My Pansy would have been the first in line to be married into the Malfoy family, but do you see me forcing her into Draco's bed? No, you do not."

"Easy for you to say," Imelda pressed through clenched jaws. "Pansy picked another very nice young man." She smiled uncertainly to Melina Zabini, who returned her gaze exasperatedly.

"What's wrong with the Nott's?" Narcissa intervened coolly.

"They are just not the same class," Imelda waved her hand dismissively. All three of the women around her rolled their eyes.

Parkinson bit the bullet. "I beg to differ, my dear. Times have changed. Our pureblood days are at an end, if we don't want to end as muggles, and you'd do well to get with the times. I was lucky that Pansy loves Blaise enough to marry him, but if she'd chosen Harry Potter, I wouldn't have minded much. Even though technically, he's a halfblood. The Potter's were a decent family once. And apparently the influx of "other" blood didn't hurt them."

The gasps around her were cut short when Zabini shushed them because the Minister called for attention.

Imelda had to put one last remark in: "How about that Weasley boy, then, Astralia? Hm?"

"Ridiculous. Now, let's not get carried away," Parkinson whispered back with a piqued expression and turned to where the Minister was calling for attention.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was standing on a dais at the back of the ballroom, with holographic pictures of the losses of the wars flashing behind him: they saw Dumbledore twinkling his eyes, Lupin giving a loop-sided smile, Tonks changing her hair, Moody raising his forefinger in reprimand, Ted Tonks smoking his pipe, Colin Creevey smiling shyly, Severus Snape surveying icily, Fred smirking, and on and on, but they also saw James and Lily Potter embracing, the Prewett's and the Fletchers waving (here Arabella Figg broke out in tears), and many, many more. Nobody dared to even whisper in view of the great losses of wizards and witches through this Dark Age.

"Dear fellow wizards and witches," Kingsley started, his baritone voice thundering through the room. "Today is the day to embrace. It has been a year since Harry Potter," here he motioned to Harry standing next to him, "defeated Lord Voldemort. I don't want to delve on the hard work and sacrifices," Harry lowered his head, "that it took to get to the point. I'm certain they were great, but Harry asked me not to mention them.

I want instead remind you of the fact that we are still here. We survived. And it is upon us, as a community, as a family, to keep living. I therefore ask you to embrace, like family members, each other. Embrace your neighbour, your fellow wizard to bond together." He paused for effect. It was clear to all that he didn't mean it literally, and so nobody moved.

"We have lost many," here he waved to the magical holographs behind him, "and we will mourn for then. But we also gained a few, from beyond enemy lines which went right through the middle of us." He paused again and clapped Harry's shoulder to pull him closer into the centre of the dais. Harry came with a jerk. Since Kingsley didn't explain the gains, people just kept listening, although a low murmur was heard.

"We are here to honour Harry Potter, who was destined to defeat Voldemort, or die trying. He succeeded, and for that we will be forever grateful. But he couldn't have succeeded without the help of his friends, as he never tires to remind me, and so we honour Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley as well, as they stood by him through thick and thin." Ron gulped at this part. Hermione put a hand on his arm and gave him a half smile.

"We also want to honour all those who stood up to the oppression of Voldemort and his minions; at times, at great personal sacrifice."

At this point, Neville's grandmother reached up and squeezed his shoulder. Neville patted her hand without taking his eyes of the Minister. The Weasley's huddled together and Arthur embraced his wife tightly when Molly burst into tears.

Kingsley thundered on. "We honour their achievement and sacrifice as it led to our freedom of a dark cloud over our lives. But we cannot change the past. It will not help to linger on deliberation of what we could have done differently." Kingsley Shacklebolt raised his head higher.

"We ought to look to the future, we shall look to what we can do to rebuild and construct our lives after the Dark Age. Draco Malfoy, will you come up here, please?" Kingsley took everybody (but a few) by surprise, calling on a Malfoy to join him on his raised stand.

Draco made his way up and placed himself close to and somewhat behind Hermione, on the far outside of the group on display. He stood like a husband behind his wife, backing her up, towering over her like a man protecting his charge, throwing alert glances over the crowd in front of them. He didn't touch her but he made it clear to the public that he had some kind of claim by his positioning alone. Hermione gave him a smile over her shoulder, and Kingsley gave him a nod and continued:

"There is a team around Harry Potter that works tirelessly to bring the remaining Death Eaters to justice, in addition to the aurors. They make great progress and very soon we have the last ones rounded up and punished for their deeds.

But none on this team has worked as diligent and efficient as the couple of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy."

Kingsley kept thundering on over the raised voices of shock and the gasps of incredulity, not only over the fact that a Malfoy worked closely and efficiently with a Muggleborn, and then Hermione Granger of all muggleborns, even though many people knew that already from the radio transmission, but also for the fact that the Minister Shacklebolt had used the work "couple". "Couple" indicated more to come.

Hermione and Harry frowned over the crowd and its reaction. Hermione felt anxious in light of her coming out with Draco and how it would be received. And a little sad. She felt Draco's carefully repressed inner turmoil and wondered if life would ever be easy for them.

Harry on the other hand was sad in light of the day's event, and all the losses it reminded them off. He still thought that he could have saved some, if only he had been quicker. He was coming to terms with it, as losses of a war weren't his fault, but it took time.

Ron wanted to enjoy the extra attention. He thought he deserved it after his struggles with Harry (and Hermione) to defeat Voldemort. But the loss of Fred and many a friend held his family in its grip and he felt Harry struggling with the aftermath of the war, and so, he couldn't. He couldn't rightfully enjoy when his best friend(s) felt so torn about it.

Draco Malfoy was trying to be a Malfoy about the whole thing: stoic and emotionally frozen, but on the inside he felt almost giddy because of his and Hermione's coming out. The fact that the Minister had called him up to stand next to the Golden Trio was as good as redemption for the Malfoy family in the mind of the public. But its sensibilities were fickle. And in addition, he felt Hermione's discomfort and felt a little anxious for her sake. Hermione didn't do well with anxiety. On top of it, he understood her: an era was coming to an end and they were holding the leashes for the future in their hands; a huge responsibility.

And so they stood, the four young people, next to the Minister of Magic on a dais in front of a crowd of wizarding society, facing the future discomfited. Because despite the hard work and sacrifices of the past, the future would bring more of it, and they didn't want to face it. They just wanted to live.

The Minister continued. "I know, I know, I was very surprised myself when I heard it the first time. But many of you have already heard that these two are adjuncted. Adjunctions are a very old piece of magic; from what we are finding out it is likely as old as magic itself, perhaps even older yet. If such an ancient magical power takes it upon itself to connect a young muggleborn powerful witch and a young pureblood traditional wizard, it is a sign, people.

It is a sign to bury old hatches. It is a sign to turn to the new. It – is – a – sign," Kingsley emphasized every word, pounding his fist in the air, "that we shall all work together to revive the magic we took for granted and a society which took its order likewise for granted; that we shall share it with everybody who was born to it, and teach it to everybody who wants to learn. And be tolerant with the rest." You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Many people were hanging on his lips and others were unsure of this new direction but didn't want to say anything. It seemed more prudent. Neville yelled: "Hear, hear" and "Yeah, that's right" was to be heard as well.

"These two," here Kingsley paused for effect again to make sure everybody was still listening, while everybody with him on the dais kept their contemplative frowns, "these two talented young people have been given the task and the opportunity to invent magic to lighten our dark times; to create counter curses to our worst nightmares – the Cruciatus, the Imperious and the Killing curse – signature spells of the dark side. And every other dark magic curse ever invented. To rid the world of the dark times once and for all." Here Kingsley voice echoed in everybody's chest and made the air ring. And then people started cheering. Shacklebolt drove the point home.

"I ask you – to embrace your fellow witch and wizard and look forward to our new world. I ask you – to help these two promising young people to fulfil their task. I ask you – to accept the new order where we are all the same, no matter our parentage.

I have a vision," Kingsley swung his voice up once more, over the increasingly louder cheering crowd, "that we shall live in peace. And live and laugh, love and cry and rebuild together – as one. One people of magical folks."

The cheering reached fever pitch. Even the utterly reserved purebloods who had only come for saving-face purposes were drawn into the yelling and screaming.

Could they really?

If the magic itself had connect a pureblood with a muggleborn, it was a sign that it was all the same to the magic, wasn't it?

Kingsley smiled jovially, but the young people next to him still frowned, decidedly uncomfortable with such attention, not believing that their fellow wizards and witches would accept this match easily that they had opposed just a few months ago. Draco still looked as if he was going to be carried off to Azkaban any second now: as if awaiting the blow.

"And I believe we will be seeing a lot more of this young couple together in the near future as well," Kingsley finished, and because of the cheering and screaming many didn't hear his last words. Hermione didn't mind. If people were going crazy at such a public event, how would they react if they saw Draco and her together at a dinner? She looked to Harry who still frowned, although for once not because the focus was on him. Poor Harry, was this how he had always felt? Hermione shuddered and looked to Draco next to her, who upon seeing her looking at him, smiled a little and raised her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles.

Hermione blushed. Public display of affection. She knew they had to set the sign, but she didn't like how exuberant people had reacted. That didn't bode well for a quiet life. But then, that train had left the station as soon as they had found out what the compow was supposed to do.

Draco pulled her closer to him, putting a protective arm around her shoulder, and with a nod to Potter, Ron and the Minister he led her off the dais and dispersed into the crowd. With people slapping their shoulders in passing, congratulating them for reasons unknown and wanting to stop them for more information, Draco managed to push her out the ballroom and into a quiet corner next to the cloak check.

Taking her face in his hands, he asked: "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Hermione sighed, enjoying his warm hands on her cheeks, "yes, I am. It's just a little overwhelming."

He scrutinized her. It reminded her of the way he had scrutinized Astoria after the breaking of the bond, the one time she had become so incredibly jealous. "Do you want to leave?"

She shook her head to rid herself of the pictures in her mind, of Draco holding another woman as dearly as he was holding her now; and to indicate her decline. 'It's in the past,' she scolded herself. 'He is holding me. He loves me."

"No, I don't think so. This breath of fresh air was welcome, but we need to mingle a little longer to give people the opportunity to speak to us. They need to get used to seeing up together."

Draco nodded but the scrutinizing didn't abide. "Okay. But Granger, you will tell me immediately if it becomes too much, understand?"

"Yes, Sir," she smiled back. His concern for her under his imperiousness was endearing.

"And then I won't take 'No' for an answer and take you home." His gaze pierced her. Then, he bent over her ear and spoke the rest quietly: "And you know what's going to happen there."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Draco!" He smirked in response and kissed her forehead.

Hermione blushed. "Not in public, Draco. You know I can't stop blushing if you do that."

"I know," he snickered. "I love seeing it."

He gave her another kiss, this time on the mouth and pulled her back with him into the ballroom to do their information rounds.

.

.

After the honouring and the endless awkward questions about her work (and likely relationship) with Draco now a common knowledge, Hermione was looking for a respite in a secluded corner behind some potted plants. Just for a second. She had promised Draco to tell him if she wanted to leave, and she didn't. Not yet. Giving people the opportunity to talk with her and Draco was crucial.

Just a quiet minute to herself, she thought, peeking behind the plants. Only somebody was already there.

"Oh. Sorry, Goyle, I just wanted …"

"No problem, Granger. There's room enough for two." He scooted over to give her more sitting room. Hermione hesitated for just a moment, but when she heard voices coming in her direction, she quickly slid between the plants and vanished from the sight of everybody in the ballroom.

She glided down the wall next to Goyle to come sit on the floor, her knees bent, her robe covering her legs.

"So"

"So"

"So, why are you hiding behind the plants?" they both said at the same time. Then, Hermione giggled and Goyle was seen with a rare smile, before he ventured forward with his reasons. Hermione was amazed.

"I'm here with my mum. With my father in Azkaban, she was looking forward to meeting old friends again. Nobody comes by anymore at home." He snorted.

"But it's not that easy. My mum was so proud when I hooked up with Draco. My parents were fully behind Crabbe and me being with Draco all the time. They really encouraged it. "Look to the Malfoys", they always said. "They can't do wrong. Old family, powerful, smart. And look where it got me, now. And Crabbe." He shook his head. It was obvious that he still missed his friend.

"Where's your mum now?" Hermione asked quietly.

"I left her with her friends, so she can chat and won't miss me for some time. Because all in all, it's rather tiresome, being everybody's scapegoat."

When Hermione just exhaled a short snort, looking forward into the greenery instead of at him, he felt encouraged and carried on. "The same people we were supposed to look up to turn against us now. They came to me, Crabbe and I, told us what we had to do and we did. It didn't always feel good. What felt good was how satisfied everybody was with us. And now, they are not, as if we were the only ones who made mistakes. Now, they want to blame us for following their orders."

He had spoken calmly straight ahead, right into the shiny waxed green leaves of the plants they were sitting behind; he exhaled forcefully through his nose, then turned to Hermione.

"You?"

Hermione waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, I just needed a breather. Being everybody's go-to-person is not all flowers and sunshine either. It can be quite smothering."

"Yeah," Goyle said. "Talk about pressure."

"Hm", Hermione made unspecific. There was lot of pressure on her and why did she always attract it, she wondered.

"Hm", Goyle did back.

Hermione sighed. Covering awkward silences wasn't one of her fortes. "So, what do you want to do?"

"Anything but talk," Goyle smirked while surveying a particularly shiny green leaf on a green plant closely. "I believe I've done enough talking for a lifetime in the last few minutes."

After a brief chuckle, Hermione ventured tentatively: "I could say "Thank you" for tipping Malfoy of on the curse upon me."

Goyle snorted. "You're welcome. It was a most dubious contribution at best, what with me actually being trained in this particular spell."

Hermione smiled. "Yes, it was, wasn't it?"

"Quite," Gregory Goyle smirked.

After a short pause, Hermione said: "You know if you want, you can help. Harry always greets everybody who wants to help. He got used to Draco being around me. I'm sure if you wanted, you could help us, too."

"Help with what, Granger?"

Hermione smiled a slim smile. "You know, with your knowledge about and practise in dark curses, you could actually help us in the casting and exploring them. You know that Draco and I work on creating counter curses, do you?"

"Hm," Goyle made, but nodded to her question. "Knowing the dark arts can actually help?"

Hermione shrugged lightly. "In a way, yes."

After another pause, he said: "Thank you for saving my life, Granger."

"Huh?" Hermione did.

"The Final battle, in the Room of Requirement. If you hadn't pulled me on the broom, I would have died in the Fiendfyre. It changes your perspective on life somewhat, being so close to death, having it lick on your heels, literally. Crabbe was a prat. Always doing more than he could handle." He shook his head in anger.

"Oh," Hermione breathed. "You're welcome as well."

"Yeah," Goyle said after a minute. "I figured. That's the thing with you Gryffindors, always out to save lives." He stopped and shook his head again.

Hermione didn't know what to say, and so she kept quiet and just gazed at her conversation partner. Goyle was awfully contemplative that night. She couldn't say for sure if he'd ever been this way before, but she figured not. He had certainly not been known for thoughtfulness. The aftermath of the war, it seemed, had brought out many good things in a variety of people then.

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing, thinking about others," he mumbled. "Crabbe would certainly be alive if we had thought more about it, after all."

Hermione put a hand on his arm. "Who knows, Gregory? Perhaps he would have died for another reason. Sometimes, people simply go. It's just hard if it's somebody you know because then you miss them."

Goyle snorted and looked at her sideways. "Perhaps." Then he smiled.

Hermione smiled back. She felt a little beside herself, sitting behind potted plants and having a deep conversation with Gregory Goyle about attitudes in and towards life, but it felt good, somehow.

"You know," he mumbled, "I told Draco I'd be okay with you two dating. And I meant it. You bring out the best in him. When I came to the hospital, he even comforted me over Crabbe's demise. He's never done that before. I knew he had a heart behind all his snobbishness; just thinking about all the times he got us out of trouble, Crabbe and me, but I thought he'd always keep it well hidden. I think it's good that he opened it for you. You'll take good care of it. He's safe with you. You are alright, you are."

Hermione gave him a beaming smile. "Thank you, Gregory. That's a really nice thing to say."

"Yeah," he said, smiling back. "It is, isn't it?"

"Yes," Hermione breathed a laugh, while tears pricked her eyes. "It is."

Maybe the world would be alright, after all.

.

.

When Hermione moved out from behind the plants and made her way back into the ballroom, lightness around her heart, she was surprised by the sight of two young ladies (pureblood by the degree of grooming) hanging from Draco's arms, left and right.

Making her way over, her forehead furrowed, she heard him say sternly: "Do I look interested? Well, you are utterly mistaken. I am not." With a frown, he determinedly moved his arms out of the girls' grip, before he saw Hermione coming his way.

When she finally built herself up in front of him with a questioning eyebrow, he kept his frown in place, but took her chin lightly between his thumb and forefinger.

"How did you know Mrs Greengrass was attacking me?" she asked him before he could say anything. He replied with a smirk.

"I didn't. I just saw you talking to my mother and who you were with and I felt trouble."

When she took it with an indulgent smile, he added: "I believe you have to dance with me for the scavengers to scatter."

"Oh, do I?" Hermione replied nonchalantly, eyeing the two young women absconding with certain malice.

"Yes," Draco said with emphasis. "You do. You seem to forget that I am still one of the most eligible bachelors for many here." He smirked. "You need to claim what's yours. Or somebody will snatch it away."

Hermione sighed. "Oh, well. So, I will claim you. Would you do me the honour of this dance, Draco Ladon Arion Malfoy?"

He grinned. "I would, Hermione Jean Granger."

Taking her hand, he led her to the dance floor in the middle of the ballroom and swung her around in the standard ballroom dance position. Hermione came willingly. Being Daddy's girl had some perks after all. He had taught her all she needed to know about Ballroom dances.

And when they swirled around the dance floor, Draco holding Hermione in a perfect light grip, her midnight blue dress reflecting the light, and Hermione following every hint of his guidance with ease, Draco grinned with delight that Hermione Granger even knew how to dance. Probably from a book – but that didn't matter at all. And when she smiled back at him, he laughed. And as they swirled and twirled in perfect synchronisation, there wasn't a one who didn't look up and thought what a nice couple they made. Until they realized who they were, the two young people who made the nice couple. But even with a frown of dismay they still had to admit that they did. Make a nice couple, that is. Working together and all.

.

.

**Harry's POV:**

A few weeks later, Malfoy had procured a cottage out in the country side, far away from any press junkie strolling by coincidentally (plus the wards were almost as strong as Hogwarts'), and they moved in. Even though they bought much new furniture, everything money could buy, thanks to Malfoy, we had to move Hermione's old couch, shaggy and sprinkled with orange cat hair into the den. Hermione as well as Malfoy refused to get rid of it. Even Hermione's parents, who were there to help (her father) and supply the helpers with refreshments (her mother) couldn't convince them.

"Hermione, it's not an heirloom. It was our very first sitting room couch, and it's way past its prime."

"I don't want to hear it. Harry, in the den, please."

"Ugh, does Crookshanks sleep on it?"

"Oh, yes," Malfoy said. "And Gwenny does, too. We couldn't put them through the trauma by taking away their couch, can't we, Hermione?"

Hermione beamed as if he'd given her a much needed excuse. "That's right, Draco. Thank you." And in front of us all she pulled his neck down and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron dropped a vase with a bang, which Hermione fixed by simply waving her hand behind her, and I felt the cool air in my open mouth. Mr Granger hrmphed, and Mrs Granger finally snickered and said: "So, we move the old couch. Boys?" She made a moving motion with both her hands for us to move the crabby old thing into the newly renovated and gleaming den, while Malfoy and Hermione kept snogging to their hearts desire.

.

Mr and Mrs Granger had reluctantly accepted (he more reluctant than she) that Draco Malfoy was going to be a(n intimate) part of Hermione's life. After we'd brought them back to England and re-installed them into their house and helped them unpack (where Malfoy had very cleverly helped. As a Malfoy, usually he wouldn't do menial work, but he got around carrying heavy boxes by cheating with levitation spells, making it look as if he carried them. And he was big in organising where the boxes were to go. Once inside the house, unpacking was done in a jiffy), we had sat them down over tea and filled them in on everything that had happened since they'd left. They both paled when they heard about Hermione's torture at Malfoy Manor and our other close cut "adventures", while Malfoy looked upset, in a way. It was hard to say with Malfoy, as he always looked as if he wanted to finish you off with a verbal or eye-shot dagger at the next opportunity. I'd judged his heightened emotions by the way he flared his nostrils, tensed his shoulders and exhaled loudly (like a dragon snorting) whenever we came to icky points in our telling, especially when they concerned Hermione's well-being.

Mr Granger still scowled at Draco by the end of the telling, but Mrs Granger got up and went into the kitchen. With a jerk of her head she indicated Hermione to follow her. It seemed Mrs Granger was running a tight ship in her home. A dentist in her own right, it appeared that Mrs Granger considered herself absolutely equal to her husband, and was confirmed in this belief, and that explained a lot with regards to Hermione's bossiness. Hermione, however, got up like a puppy dog that wasn't sure if it had done something wrong and traipsed behind her mother. Ron and I kept Hermione's father entertained with the description of cool magic spells and blow-by-blow reports of fights we'd had, while Malfoy kept quiet, trying for inconspicuous for once in his life, and turned his head every so often and glanced toward where Hermione had vanished.

A quarter of an hour later, Mrs Granger came back with Hermione in tow and brought platters of sandwiches, which they placed in front of us. "Richard, may I talk to you for a minute?" Mrs Granger said imperiously to her husband.

He got up and followed his wife in the kitchen the same way Hermione had done. Already five minutes later he came back and sat back in his chair, grumbling. Ron and I exchanged a puzzled look, and Malfoy sent one to Hermione, who shrugged. But when we got up to leave a little while later, assuming Hermione would stay with her parents, she surprised us by getting up to leave as well. When Mr Granger made to call her back surprised, his wife put a hand on his arm and shook her head at him. Then she looked sideways at Hermione. Hermione smiled back at her. Mrs Granger's glance wandered on to Malfoy where her eyes narrowed a bit. He snorted and nodded once. He understood the parental warning; which wasn't any less fearsome just because it came from the mother. He put his hand on Hermione's shoulder and guided her, claiming his witch with parental leave, and we all stepped out the door together, saying a jolly good-bye. When I closed the door behind me, I heard Mrs Granger say to her husband: "Our little girl is all grown up into a woman, Richard. He's a good boy, in a way. Very traditional in their ways, but she likes him. Trust her judgment."

"A good boy the way I was a good boy?" I heard Mr Granger tease his wife.

She laughed. "Somewhat. But I trust Hermione to be actually more responsible than I was. After what they've been through, she deserves every happiness that comes her way."

.

.  
><strong>Harry's POV:<strong>

The press haunted them at first wherever they went. They learned quickly to keep their plans to themselves, enter through backdoors or apparate directly into restaurants or pubs or wherever they had wanted to go, and require a fast service or skip dessert, because the press would inevitably catch up to them after the second course or half an hour, whichever came first.

At first the headlines were as expected: the Death Eater and the war heroine, questioning her judgment, wondering if he had hexed her, or she him, because …, well, you know. When they didn't let up or let themselves be diverted from being seen together, the Daily Prophet turned to betrayal, Hermione the good side, Malfoy the bad side, trying to get a statement of disapproval out of me, which of course, I didn't give. The Prophet and I never got back on an even keel and I still had the writing scarred on my hand, not to tell lies. Not that I would have lied about Hermione in any case.

Only very few sober souls (Lovegood and his Quibbler amongst them) started looking into the fact that Malfoy and Hermione were indeed adjuncted (even though Lovegood came with a story about unknown powers of Bedoozles) and the power they held together was phenomenal and that maybe, just maybe it wasn't such a bad thing if they ended up together, for pulling both sides of the wizarding world together and all. Especially after Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt had said the same thing.

After several weeks, with every date in public appearing in the latest Prophet edition, everybody got used to seeing Hermione and Draco together wherever they went, carefully dispersing PDAs of the most tasteful kind (tentative hand holding and hand kisses, stolen glances and smiles, arms around shoulders and waists and such); and after a few false starts they had established themselves as coming together.

.

Hermione and Draco stood in the entrance of a posh new wizarding restaurants in the backwaters of Bath, known absolutely only to insiders and only through a tip from Lavender (as redemption) and Parvati (as a gesture of gratitude for the interview).

The Maître d' just informed Hermione that despite their reservations and her war heroine status, he could not have them dine in his restaurant.

"Ms Granger, I am so very sorry, and of course, you are welcome to stay and have a nice fine dinner, on the house, but we will not have anything to do with a Malfoy. We simply refuse to serve a member of the Malfoy family."

Hermione looked at Draco, who kept his face carefully schooled in indifference. She however, saw the anger boiling under the surface, mixed with some guilt and frustration, and she felt the anger swapping over their magical connection and distribute in her own veins. She took charge.

With an (exaggerated) exasperated sigh, she said: "Maître, .." looking at his name tag, she asked: "May I call you Thomas?"

The Maître d' indicated with nod that she was absolutely entitled to call him whatever she preferred.

Hermione nodded. "Thomas, just last week we went to an establishment that at first refused to serve muggleborns. Can you imagine?"

Thomas indicated by a sharp breath intake that he could vividly imagine the shame of refusing to serve Hermione Granger, war heroine and best friend of Harry Potter. "They refused to serve YOU?"

Hermione nodded gravely. "Yes, can you imagine?"

Maître Thomas was upset. "Yes, I can. No, …" he stopped himself, with his hand held up in deference. "No, I cannot imagine how a wizard of his right mind might refuse to serve you a decent dinner." He shook his head in anger.

Hermione smiled indulgently. "Yes, unfathomable, isn't it? Now, can you imagine what Draco Malfoy did when he heard?"

Maître Thomas shook his head.

Hermione lowered her voice to a whisper and narrowed her eyes to a dangerous squint, holding Draco Malfoy's hand tightly in hers at the same time: "He stood up to the Maître d' and told him in no uncertain terms that if he wouldn't give him and his lovely dinner guest his best table and served us his best dinner in a matter of minutes, he would buy the whole restaurant and lay waste to the entire premise and make sure that none of its employees would ever find another decent position."

"And what did the Maître d' reply?" Thomas inquired breathlessly.

Hermione lowered herself to a conspirational height and smiled angelically.

"He gulped and grumbled a bit but prepared his best table for us."

As much taken in as Thomas had been with the unlikely story, he took an internal step back at this. This was fundamental. He wouldn't serve a Malfoy out of conviction.

"Now," Hermione whispered close to his face, so that he could smell her apple scent and really see the person Hermione Granger eye to eye, "do you rather want me to do the same because you are refusing to serve my companion?"

When Maître Thomas hesitated considerably, she narrowed her eyes to slits and hissed: "Would you rather read in the Prophet tomorrow that Hermione Granger, war heroine and best friend of Harry Potter, refused to frequent your restaurant because you refused her dinner guest?"

Maître Thomas gulped.

"Or would you rather read my raving about the excellent service we received here? Weren't we quite done with the bigotry?" Hermione whispered right in Thomas' face. He gulped just like his predecessor had done the previous week, and staring in warm brown eyes that reminded him strongly of the fertile soil of his home town, he felt a power emanating from this slim muggleborn witch. A power that reminded him of the Beltane festivals of his youth, when he had been young and carefree and celebrating the beauty of life renewing– and it was bound to the young wizard at her side. Thomas swallowed heavily and decided with a heavy heart that he would rather have this vitalizing power on his side and not opposed.

Within minutes they had been ushered to the best table in the entire restaurant and supplied with complimentary hors d'oeuvres.

.

"Granger, really, was it worth it?"

"Of course, it was. You tell your pureblood supremacy supporters how it is and I tell my "we-never-want-anything-to-do-with-pureblood-traditionalists-after-the-Voldemort-fiasco" and perhaps together, we can make some headway. And have some nice dinner dates," Hermione smirked at the grumpy wizard across from her. She toasted him with her wine glass and swirled her wine up the glass sides.

"A Fumé blanc, it goes well with the smoked fishy pieces here."

Draco snorted. "Yes, it does. But will we have to fight in every restaurant either way?"

Hermione contemplated the world-tired blond man with glittering eyes, her lion courage invigorated with every step of progress and every won battle.

"I believe so, in the beginning. Give it a few more months and people will have gotten used to us appearing together. Perhaps we can add Harry and Ginny into the mix. And Blaise and Pansy," she added as an afterthought. "People will get the message eventually."

Draco rubbed his face. "I'm not used to being denied entrance anywhere. It's a tiresome experience."

"Yes, it is," Hermione looked indulgent, and decided on the quick that she didn't want to remind him that she had experienced this all her life while in the wizarding world. "I tell you what. We'll have an entrée here, and take the dessert at home."

When Draco still didn't look convinced about the benefit of their outing, she leaned across the table and whispered against his ear: "You can eat ice-cream from my naked stomach." She shivered thinking about the cold delicacies on her skin. "Or my back side. Your choice."

The heated glance from her wizard told her that her message had reached him and he was already contemplating the advantages of his choices and where it would ostensibly lead.

.

**Harry's POV (cont'd):**

Despite their (well reported) outings and their search for physical completion, I still couldn't quite believe that Hermione was dating (and loving) Draco Malfoy, beyond their sexual energy exchange and a certain physical attraction. So much misery had happened between them, and I wondered how she could be comfortable around him, permanently. But one event fixed it in my mind.

One night, I had invited Hermione and Draco Malfoy over to dinner. We were standing in the basement kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place where the girls were cutting up vegetables for the dish. I had just passed Malfoy a butterbeer awkwardly because it was still strange to have him so intimately in my home. He couldn't take his eyes away from Hermione though, as he accepted the beer rather awkwardly as well. After one sip he couldn't simply stand by anymore. He sauntered over to Hermione and stood behind her.

"Granger, I can't watch how you mutilate this poor celery root. Look, lift the knife up only in the back and shove it forward, slicing through."

He enclosed his arms around her and took her hands, one holding the vegetables, one the knife, then moved her hand in the described motion and the knife sliced through the stubborn root like through butter.

The Hermione I knew would have been flustered and enraged that he went over her head and corrected her. But the Hermione in my kitchen that night snuggled back into Malfoy's front and let him lead her hands. After two, three more slices, she stopped and turned into his cheeks, smiling: "Why don't you do it?" He grunted but let her escape his arms and set to work, cutting up the vegetables in exactly same bite sizes and at an enormous speed, like a well-trained chef. It was difficult to even see the knife. Hermione picked up Malfoy's bottle of butterbeer and took a deep sip behind his back.

"Ooooh," Ginny squealed from her cutting board. "Can I borrow him, Hermione? Harry isn't any good for cutting things in the kitchen."

I murmured: "That's what magic is for."

Hermione frowned and fixed us with a glare. "No," she exclaimed rather vehemently. Judged by her gasp, Ginny was a little shocked by Hermione's impetuous reaction. And so was I. Before any of us could say or do anything though, Malfoy snickered and turned, so that he could speak directly into Hermione's ear: "Calm, Granger. I think she is teasing you."

Hermione answered snidely, without taking her eyes of us: "On the surface, you may be right. But she's been eyeing you all evening. I'm sure, she wouldn't mind a piece of you, and that is out of the question."

"Erm," Ginny blushed and looked highly embarrassed. I couldn't believe that my girlfriend had looked over Draco Malfoy of all people. Although, objectively, Draco Malfoy did cut a fine figure as much as I hated to admit it. And that Hermione had noticed it and was annoyed about it made me realize that the world we knew had come to an end. I wasn't worried that Ginny would leave me for a fluke like Malfoy. She was one to get an appetite elsewhere and satisfy her hunger at home. I didn't mind that at all. And Malfoy didn't seem to be interested in anybody but Hermione. At that time, it was already the talk of the town.

"Hm," Malfoy made, turning back to his vegetables. He looked over his shoulder, though, and eyed Ginny from head to toe. "Tempting, Weaselette, but no thanks. Blood traitor issues aside, I'm not interested. Granger here, won't let me stray." He grinned with his last sentence.

"Hey," I said. "That's my girl."

"And it'll stay that way, Potter. You are safe from cuckolding from my part." He smirked.

Hermione turned to him. "Too right, he is," she growled and put her hand somewhere on Malfoy's back where we couldn't see it, because she covered it with her body. But by the twitch in Malfoy, one could figure it was somewhere intimate. He glared at her.

"See, Potter, that's the difference between you and me," he said a propos, to bring the topic back to Ginny's enthusiasm about cutting vegetables. "You always considered potion making a chore. And I really enjoy it. I enjoy the fact that you can change some potions by cutting its ingredients differently. I enjoy that in potions, you can combine magic with precision. A spell is a sending out of your magical energy somewhere in the vicinity of your target. If you did that with potions, it would be catastrophic." He continued speaking while cutting vegetables with lightning speed. I was sure he would sever a finger at one point. But he didn't.

"When Weasley had to cut the root for me in third year, it was really painful to watch. I almost gave up my game of suffering when I saw him mutilate these roots. I had to bite my lip to just make Snape trade mine with yours. And then how you skinned the fig …" He rolled his eyes.

My jaw dropped. I had always known that Malfoy was a sneaky, insufferable git but to have him admit that out loud … And then, Hermione put the topping on the cake when she snickered. He smirked back to her. Was she amused that Malfoy had tricked me in third year? I asked her.

"Well, Harry, you have to admit, it's funny, in retrospect." She smirked at Malfoy who turned around chuckling and finished the cutting of the vegetables with still astonishing precision.

The rest of the dinner went by with chatter. We avoided themes like Voldemort and his regime and had Hermione and Draco rather report on what they had discovered with regards to their work with the compow. I came to realize that behind his snide remarks, Malfoy had wit and that he could be cynically funny.

But most astonishing was the way he looked at Hermione. Like she held the world in her small hands. His world. His face softened when he looked Hermione's way, whereas everybody else he still glared into the ground. If I had only gotten to know him, now that he was older, when he combined the smoothness of a predator with the precision and unforgiveness of a well shot arrow that pierces your heart, and his verbal sharpness with the power of their compow he wielded, I would have been deadly afraid.

Good thing, he was no longer an enemy. The mark on his arm was empty and stood just as a silent reminder of what we had left behind. A marring of skin was all that was left.

Ginny whispered: "They fit well, don't you think?"

"Yes," I said. "Like two pieces of a puzzle."

"Yes," she smiled. "A very complicated puzzle."

.

.

On the way home, walking leisurely up the country lane that led to their solitary cottage, Draco asked:

"Granger, I couldn't overlook your impetuous reaction to the Weaselette's question. Care to explain why you are still so possessive? You know you have no reason to doubt my fidelity."

Hermione looked sheepish when she replied. "It's a habit. I believe, in the beginning, it was the compow pushing me to claim you, to make it permanently whole; even though it didn't really do anything to me. It just felt very rough when you talked about other women, like a prickly pear rolling around on my nerves. It felt irritating and uncomfortable in that state and I reacted to it, the way I react to anything less than an "Outstanding" on an exam. It confused me to no end that I felt compelled to react on the irritation and make me look like a possessive harpy."

Draco snickered. Less than "Outstanding", that would certainly be awful for Hermione. And feeling like a harpy …

Hermione continued her telling abashedly. "Now, I simply react to any woman who looks at my wizard in an appraising way. Because all magical connection aside, you could still think one day there might be greener pastures somewhere else."

Draco felt his heart soar. Her wizard.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to press a huge kiss on her lips. "I wouldn't have pegged you for so stubborn that you even refuse to understand love, Granger. On the other hand, it makes sense. You are the most stubborn woman I've ever met. Can't you stop that worry machine in your head for one second to think through what greener pastures I could possibly be looking for when I have everything I could ever wish for right in front of me?" Hermione searched for his searing kiss by pulling his head back down to her.

"Stop the worrying, but don't ever stop claiming me," he mumbled through their lips pressed together. "It's an incredible turn-on."

**.**

**.**

**Later (or a later day):**

"Oooh …. Yes…. Oh, yes…. Draco …. Yes….Hm…"

On his knees, supporting himself on his forearms, Draco slammed into Hermione in quick succession, panting like a runner, a little light reflecting on the glistening sweat on his forehead.

"Ha…ha...ha…ha… Merlin...ha… Granger…huh…oh, yes…"

Accompanying their moans was the squishing sound of his quick thrusts and their pants in between. He pounded away in a quick sprint to the finishing line. Hermione reached it five seconds before him.

"Haaah, Draco, yes, oh, Merlin, oh, yes, ha-a-a-a-ah," she squealed.

"Hoooh, Granger, yes, oh, gawds, so tight, hn, hn, hn, hn-ah, Granger, don't scratch, it hurts."

Hermione Granger panted a little chuckle, coming down from her high. "Oh, come on, you baby, you like bites, you like hair pulling, what's wrong with some scratches?"

"I told you I'm not into pain. Love bites and hair pulling are not painful," he squeezed out between clenched teeth, arching his back, away from her nails, but tensing into her at the same time.

She breathed a little laugh, feeling so very relaxed that her wizard's complaint could not bother her honestly. "Stop shagging me so insanely well and I'll try."

He huffed. "Not a chance, Granger," and sank down on her chest.

After relaxing for a full minute, he murmured into her left breast: "One of these days, Granger, I will knock you up."

Hermione murmured back: "One of these days, I will want you to knock me up."

He remained quiet for a moment over her once again easy acceptance of his starkness. Then he said, looking out over the tip of her left breast: "You think I could be a father?"

Hermione, looking down on the blond head of hair, replied: "Absolutely. You can be anything you put your mind to."

"And you will make up for the missing tenderness?"

"No. You can be tender with me, you will learn how to be tender and loving with your children, with our children."

He mumbled something that Hermione didn't quite catch.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

He raised his head but didn't look her in the eyes. "I said I may need your help with that."

Her face softened. "Draco, when did I ever deny you my help?"

For once, he looked sheepish. "You could possibly be angry at the way I treat my children."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "If you try, I'll help you, come hell or high water." When he didn't reply, she added. "I'd be more concerned that you lose your attraction to me when I become fat as a whale and won't be quite as springy anymore afterwards."

Draco Malfoy snorted. "Fat chance, Granger. I know you'll be beautiful, glowing from the inside in a mother's happiness. You'll outshine the sun."

Hermione was a bit swept away that Draco had such high notions of her looks, pregnant or not, and smiled down at where he was settled over her chest.

But he frowned down at her belly. "You know that when we both want it, the compow will dissolve your contraception, don't you?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, I know. I've been very firm in my non-pregnancy wish so far, after switching to the spells." The potion hadn't agreed with her anymore. She strongly suspected the compow had something to do with it, to push the creation aspect of her relationship with Draco forward. She was not going to let it determine their lives in that way, though. Blithe little bugger.

His question answered, he nestled between her breasts again and let himself sink into her warm body.

"You know, you are the only one who I would ever allow to inflict any kind of pain on me, do you?"

Tousling his hair by pulling gently on single strands, Hermione hmm'd. "And why is that?"

"Do you really have to ask, Granger? Because you are the only person ever who took some off me. Or even offered. Not even my mother did that," he finished murmuring. Turning his head to kiss her breasts left and right, he settled back and continued to let her dig through his hair. "That's also the reason why I wanted to pull the Cruciatus from you, bringing our compow on its way. I couldn't stand seeing you writhe in pain after you offered to lighten mine. It felt fundamentally wrong, like the sun coming up in the North."

Hermione enjoyed the feeling of his hair under her fingers. She thought back to that night in the classroom. She had touched his hair that night and enjoyed the feel of it. But she hadn't been free to dig entirely through it. Had she tried, Draco would have likely exploded in (mock?) disgust and they would have never gotten this far. And they had gotten very far.

"You know, offering, wanting to take someone's pain is the ultimate dedication. It's not that I didn't mean it that night, but sacrificing myself for Draco Malfoy the bully wasn't really in my books."

Draco turned his head and looked at her face. His eyes were neutrally attentive. "Why did you do it, then?"

Hermione watched as his head turned to kiss the palm of her hand, which lay on his cheek, and nip and suck one of her fingers into his mouth. "It just felt so wrong: that a young man was forced into damaging his soul with no way out. That you were forced to decide between the ends of two lives and which was more worthy to continue; forced to suffer from disregarding the elemental rule of life, the preservation of life itself." She looked away from his piercing glance because it distracted her. His gaze usually moved something in her and she wanted to finish her thought. His tongue tickling her finger in his mouth didn't help matters either. She pulled it out and watched how Draco turned his head to her stomach again to pepper light kisses on its skin. Why had she offered to take his pain these years ago and kicked off the entire change of their history with the result that they fell in love and couldn't imagine living without each other anymore?

"I felt with my offer I was able to balance the sheet somewhat; that I could right some wrong, even if it involved you. No," she interrupted herself when he snorted. "Especially because it involved you. I wasn't in love with you by a long shot, perhaps a little bit attracted, but there was no way I would have lain with a potential Death Eater voluntarily. But I felt for you. I felt the vacuum, the darkness in you, and I felt compelled to balance it. To give something, to fill the void. With kindness, with life."

When the blond man on her stomach snorted again, she focused on him. He smirked up at her. "What is it with you Gryffindors always sacrificing yourself for others?"

Hermione grinned. "Oh, we are not morbid, I told you that. And we are not blindly stupid either. It's a trade-off. We know there's a reward for it, somewhere down the line. I may have offered some sacrifice once, but at the moment I feel quite rewarded for it."

Draco grinned back and there was a wicked glitter in his gaze. "We could change that. I could make you sacrifice some dignity."

Hermione chuckled. "Ah, would you really do that, Mr Lightfighter?"

"Temporary insanity," he grumbled, reminded of his desperation when Hermione had been hit and almost taken from him. "That's all it was. The compow made me. Or those Dementors must have addled my brain more than I initially thought. And it didn't help that I spent the next three days sitting on a flimsy hospital chair."

"Right," Hermione replied with a quirked eyebrow. "Was that the reason why you shook so badly when the compow annihilated your bond to Astoria? You hadn't recovered from the Dementors?"

"No," he said, while dipping his head down again to nip the side of her right breast. He really had a thing for them, her half-globes. "You know that wasn't the reason. You know that I was beside myself with desire and it likely didn't help that the compow promoted our union. And it may still do. But honestly? I don't care. If it backs me up a little in the lust department, I bloody don't care. I am of sound mind and in full possession of all my capacities and my magic, and then some, and if I get a little help from a magical power to lust after the most incredible woman I've ever met, the one I am in love with, I bloody well don't give it a second thought. And neither should you."

He had raised his head to look up at Hermione and pulled himself up of her chest in agitation, so that he was hovering over her face. Hermione smiled up at the frowning face of the always angry young man she preferred to shag her brains out. A young man she was so deeply connected with that she didn't want to miss him a single day of her life.

"I'm not," she spoke against his lips. "Not anymore."

"I was drawn to you like a moth to the light, disregarding any consequences, and the compow preparing the breaking of the dark magic shook me fundamentally. It knows us. The compow knew that you would accept me. That's why minimal intent is enough. The compow becomes a part of your magic and knows you inside out. It knew that it would have the permission to break the bond. So, long before your words, it started to niggle away at the bonding magic. This magic is anchored in both individuals it connects. To rip it out feels like ripping off a limp. Excruciating."

"I know," Hermione whispered, while she slung her legs around his hovering form, pulling him closer to her. She didn't want to be reminded that he had to suffer the pain of the bond-breaking. She didn't want to think of any pain he had suffered, emotionally or physically. All she wanted to do was keep him safe and sound against her body. Plus, she loved the way how his larger body covered hers in warmth.

"Taking somebody's pain is an act of love. Altruistic. Putting another life in front of your own," Draco mumbled into Hermione's neck, not wanting to look at her.

"Your act of redemption, then," Hermione picked up his thought. "What made you do it?" she added as an afterthought, expecting a deeper layer to his intention.

He lifted his head a bit and spoke into her cheek. "I had to. There was no other way. I couldn't NOT do anything."

Hermione nodded. "Yes. I had to as well, that night. It's what drives life forward, these little acts of love for life."

"Filling the void with love and life," Draco completed, while stroking a curly lock away from Hermione's ear.

Behind his back she slipped her hands back into his hair, holding it close to the scalp, the way he liked it best. She pushed a little against the back of his head to make him come lower to her. He came willingly and settled himself once again in the crook of her neck, turning his face to her skin. She felt his breath just below her ear.

"You chose life then, at one point," Hermione murmured in his silky hair.

She still wanted him as close as possible to her. If she could have sucked him into her womb, she would have done. It wasn't sexual, and she was aware that the compow, the adjunction magic played on their desire and their feelings for each other. She just wasn't sure anymore which had come first, just as Dumbledore had said, and that was the whole point. If the compow had built on the fact that she was drawn to Malfoy, to Draco, despite his upbringing and his Death Eater connection, as a balancing act, or if she had developed feelings because of her magical connection to him, wasn't at all clear.

But it was no longer important. Because they had feelings and very strong desires toward each other, and that wasn't going to change. Even if it had perhaps started out magically enforced, by the time the magic stopped, if it ever did, they would have built a life together and exchanged so much magic and essence with each other and shared their bodies mind-bogglingly so many times, they wouldn't be able to imagine how to ever separate. And there was nothing wrong with that.

"I chose you. Anything else after that was denial and coming to terms with it."

Hermione smiled, thinking about how Draco voiced what she had felt herself.

"Do you think we would have clued in if the dream hadn't pushed us in the right direction?" she asked into the room.

"Given how miserable we were when separated, we might have. But it could have been too late. If I had been married to Astoria, I believe at the very least it would have been much harder to come back together again. I believe that was the purpose of the dream; a wake-up call of sorts."

"It still gave us the choice, though, didn't it?"

"The choice was always ours to make. We could have chosen to live in misery."

"Well, yes, I'm not stupid, you know?" Hermione snorted.

Draco smirked. "No, you're not. Neither am I. I believe the powers that be were banking on that. They were hoping that we would overcome our prejudices and get on with what we were supposed to do; which is using the compow to heal our world."

"But you need a lot more than smartness to figure out a convoluted dream as that. In retrospect, everything is easier."

"I know. But it was chockfull of hints to get our act together and BE together. How intense we wanted to go together was up to us. And we figured out quite a few hints on our own."

"Once we started talking, yes."

"Talking – and other things, yes," Draco smirked. Hermione blushed.

"Was I really that good?" she asked, blushing deeper.

Draco smirked again. "The virgin bride still not sure of herself? What exactly do you not understand when I moan my heart out?"

Hermione's blush took on a permanent tomato red. "I just don't understand the difference between me and the other girls you were with, some of them way more experienced than I'll likely ever bring up the courage to be."

"All in good time, Granger," Draco smirked. "Your lion heart will give you the courage to be and do whatever you want." Then he sobered. "The difference between you and the other girls or women I was with is that everything that comes from you is heartfelt. Essentially from you. Honest. You give your essence away and it makes you stronger. When you tried to fight it and tried to preserve what you had for once, it sapped you of your energy. And that is so opposite to what I grew up with, where everybody clings to what they have and won't give an inch, it felt like the perfect antidote to the void in my life. It still does, in fact. I don't think I'll ever get over it. I'll need you to fill me up with your essence for the rest of my life," he smirked with his last sentence again.

She smirked uncharacteristically in light of his serious issues. "Well, you can certainly take my pain again when I'll be in labour, if you stick around for that."

He looked up into her smirking face with his falling. "I would if I could. I'll be a mess if you want me there while you give birth. If it was a curse, I wouldn't let you suffer for one second."

Her face softened. She stroked his cheek and said: "I know. I love you, too."

He kissed her throat and lay back down again, nuzzling into her warmth.

After another silent minute, he spoke up again: "I heard that women conceive better when they have sex with their legs raised high, like over the man's shoulders. Want to try, for practice?"

Hermione chuckled. "Draco, we are still only twenty years old. Give it another year, alright? At the very least."

He sighed. "Alright. We'll need the time for other things anyway."

Hermione was mulling things over in her mind. "One would think that the attraction subsides at one point, not only because the novelty wears off, but also because we had some extra incentive to shag, don't you think? Now that we know that we also used to want to come together because the compow needed us to develop its powers? Shouldn't the attraction stop somehow, now that we figured it out?" She shivered from tiredness.

Draco slipped off her front and into her side, then grabbed the bed sheet and draped it over his witch and himself, covering them both. When she sighed and cuddled up against him, skin on skin, drifting off, he enclosed her in his embrace and whispered in her ear: "Not a chance, Granger. Not a chance." He settled in and let his mind drift off when Hermione called him back to consciousness one more time.

"Draco?"

"Hm?" he replied sleepily.

"What do we need the time for?"

"Practice," he said. "And a wedding," he mumbled before he succumbed to slumber in their bubble of bliss.

.

THE END

_A/N: This is the end the way I intended it. However, there are a few readers who wanted to see the children Hermione saw in her vision. I had an idea, but it'll have to come as a post-epilogue, because I have yet to write it._

_For the counter spells I went to my Latin dictionary: _Voluntas_ means "free will", _assoleo_ means "to care" (or I care), _Pervivo_ means "to live on" and _reanimo_ means "to revive", basically. Don't like it, send me suggestions. _

_Until the very last part._


	49. Post-Epilogue

_A/N: Some readers have been asking for the children Hermione saw in her vision one day. It had never occurred to me to put them in the story anywhere because it was just a vision, but due to the demand they snuck in my head. Here's how they came out._

_Oh, almost forgot (I'm already done, mentally): thanks for reviews go to the lovely scv914, SSHGDMLOVE and kimo acp. Did I forget somebody? (It's late)_

_There's no shagging in this chapter but another hospital stay and mention of blood. And indirect profanity. Be aware._

_And the last disclaimer for this story. The characters belong to JK Rowling and her associates, only the plot is mine, no profit is made from this, only the satisfaction of a job bloody well finished. _

**Post-Epilogue:**

.

"Daddy?"

"Hm?"

"Why is mummy so grumpy these days?"

Standing in the Manor's breakfast parlour at the table where he just pushed the plate with a sandwich, that Deezy had prepared and brought in, in front of his 3 year-old son, Scorpius, Draco smirked at the question.

"Because she is fat as a whale with your sister and she doesn't feel comfortable if she can't see her feet."

As soon as he had finished speaking, there was a yell coming from the adjacent room where he knew Hermione was resting with her feet put up, because her ankles had the volume of a body builder's biceps this late in the pregnancy.

"Draco?"

"What, Granger?" he yelled back.

"Where's my milk shake?"

"I'm feeding our son because you can't do it yourself anymore. Be an adult and wait your turn, will you?"

A quiet "Oh" came from the other room and Draco knew she'd realized that Scorpius was with him and not to yell in front of him. Then he heard a short snort and something resembling a muttered "as if Deezy couldn't have done it". Draco grinned at his wife's impatience, but he motioned to Deezy to fulfil Hermione's request. Deezy nodded and popped into disappearance.

Scorpius mused, picking on his whole wheat bread. "Daddy?"

"Yes, son?"

"Do you love mummy?"

Draco smiled, pulled out a chair, sat next to his young boy and answered "Yes." From the bottom of his heart, he felt. When that didn't seem to convince the buggering three-year-old, he asked: "Why would you ask that?"

"Mrs Butterbloom told us that if you like someone, you don't yell at them and that it's not nice to yell, and you and mummy, you yell all the time." After a brief pause, he added: "At each other that is, not at me."

Draco closed his eyes and decided to have a word with his son's kindergarten teacher about spreading "unqualified wisdom" to his kid. He reached across and ruffled Scorpius' dark blond strands and said:

"I agree it's not nice to yell in general. And particularly, Slytherin's don't do it. But your mummy is a special case and we just love yelling at each other. If your mummy stops yelling at me, I know something is seriously wrong with her. We tease each other quite a bit, but we love each other very much, so, don't you worry about that, kiddo."

Scorpius nodded and finally picked up his sandwich satisfied. Draco looked at his son's blond head, now bent over his meal, and marvelled how Granger's influence had darkened the typical Malfoy platinum-blond, but how his son still had the same grey eyes.

He considered telling his son about their clashing magic, which made them go for each other's throats all the time. But when he thought about how this same magic had created a wonderful entity made to balance and spread the love in life (and how he, Draco Malfoy, was an essential part of it, incredibly) he wondered how a three-year-old would be able to understand this. His son was smart for just three years, no wonder when looking at the parents, but he could hear Granger cautioning him in his head against overtaxing the boy with too complicated things.

But he couldn't wait for the day when he would explain his children how he had come to love their mother. A story that he liked to repeat to any audience he could get because it warmed his heart every time he told it. And Granger's smile helped, when she heard him tell it.

When he looked at his son chew, he was naturally drawn to the acts of making him, in his mind, and how they couldn't stop and were having a daughter soon, very soon.

He reminisced last night with a suppressed shudder. Having grown to the size of a small Beluga didn't prevent his wife from climaxing spectacularly when he went down on her, something he still liked to do very much, because she still enjoyed it very much. But he missed getting into her. He still loved the feeling of connecting with her deep in her body. He didn't think that would ever change. But they couldn't risk it this close to the delivery date for fear of an early labour and resulting complications. Granger was still a slim woman.

But it wasn't long now. His daughter was due any day and in a few weeks' time, Granger would be back to normal size and have healed and she would take up her wifely duties again. Her riding him to completion and her taking him into her mouth had fallen a little behind recently due to her size. He couldn't even lean over her, due to the belly being in the way. He just couldn't wait.

A renewed yell from Hermione ripped him out of his thoughts: "Draco!"

He froze at her urgency. "What?" he yelled back.

"My water broke."

Cursing wildly, ignoring Scorpius' wide eyes upon his filthy words, he jumped from his seat and ran to Hermione to see the dark wet stain spreading out on the seat below her. He threw one look at his level-headed wife, who grinned at him even while the first contraction gripped her and she winced. "Perhaps you shouldn't have made me come quite so hard last night," she pressed out between clenched teeth.

And then he ran with another string of curses to the fireplace to floo his mother, who was visiting the Parkinson's but came over immediately to take care of Scorpius.

Getting Hermione to St. Mungo's was no problem once Scorpius was safely and calmly settled in his Grandmother's loving arms. Narcissa carried him out of the room, promising to show him some of his father's old toys he had never seen before and that Mummy was fine and they would visit her as soon as his sister was born.

The real problem was Draco's fight with the healers over him being in the room while Hermione gave birth, a hitherto widely unknown thing in the wizarding world. He won the fight when Hermione imperiously demanded in the middle of a contraction that she be allowed to crush her husband's hand when she needed to, just as she had done during her first delivery, and didn't they know who she was and to shut up and give her something against the fucking pain.

Huffing the pain off with her eyes squeezed shut, she reminded the healer-in-charge that the last time they had tried to ban her husband from her room she had crushed a healer's hand as a substitute and that said healer was still not able to take up his manual work again. The healer-in-charge relented with an eye-roll, while Draco Malfoy smirked uncertainly. He wasn't too concerned when Hermione still had enough air to berate a healer. He was more concerned for the soundness of his hand.

And then they got down to business. Shoes pulled off, Draco Malfoy sat at the head end of the bed. It turned out that the delivery would go smoother when Hermione was on her knees, due to the positioning of the baby, and so he had his wife's head on his shoulder and held her shaking, sweating, wincing and whimpering body during the birth of his daughter, stroking over her back and sides and letting his hand be crushed to smithereens with every major contraction.

Merlin, was he ever grateful for healing spells.

Several times he used their compow's extra strength to numb Hermione's pain considerately with a pain soother charm (Hermione's invention) (and his hand's, just taking the edge off this crushing pain, for fuck's sake. How could a small, slim woman have so much strength?), but each time she waved him off after several minutes, claiming she wanted to be able to feel the contractions coming.

For the final pushes Hermione had to turn around again and so she was lying in his arms and in his lap when they both saw their daughter for the first time. After a quick clearing of her airways and the cutting of the cord, Cassiopeia Malfoy was put on her mother's stomach and Draco had a prime seat when she raised her head for the first time and looked at her parents.

And just when he had looked at his son for the first time, Draco felt this choking pressure in his chest, this indescribable feeling of being filled with love to the brim and not being able to hold it in, so it would squeeze out through the eyes, darn it.

"She's beautiful," Hermione whispered at that moment. Blond strands of hair were darker than they would be eventually because they were still wet and plastered to her head, but it was already very evident that she would be the exact mix as Scorpius, with parts from both her parents. Grey eyes and darker blond hair.

"Yes, just like you," Draco wanted to say, but all he was able to croak out was a feeble "Hm, yyy".

Hermione understood and when Cassie was taken away for proper cleaning, checks and measurements, she turned around and pulled her husband's head down for a full tear salty kiss.

"Thank you," he whispered, his forehead leaning against hers, when he was master of his voice again.

"Thank you for helping," Hermione smiled back, and then closed her eyes in exhaustion. Draco scooted out from behind her back to give her a better position to rest. With a last kiss he sauntered over to where his, no, their daughter was being taken care off.

When she was cleaned and dressed the healer moved aside, and with a smile said: "Here you go, Mr Malfoy. Congratulations. Your daughter is beautiful and completely healthy."

"Thank you," he said neutrally, the overwhelming evident in his features. "Please take good care of my wife, she needs to rest and heal properly."

"Of course," the nameless healer nodded back. Draco couldn't be arsed with remembering their names. Hermione or his mother would take care of thanking them later, once they were safely back home.

And so Draco stood bend over the table, on which his daughter lay in one of those thingies that prevented babies from turning over completely and falling off.

Taking her between his forearms, this tiny baby that was his daughter, he spoke the magical words of a wizard accepting his child as his, just as he had done with Scorpius:

"Cassiopeia Janna Malfoy, welcome to this world. Your mother and I love you very much."

Cassiopeia didn't even have the courtesy to open her eyes to look at her father, but she waved her arms wildly while her tiny mouth split into a huge yawn. Draco laughed, tears in eyes, and kissed her hands, then picked her up with well used movements and cradled her in the crook of his arms where she fell quickly asleep. Hermione had already done the same thing over on the bed, and so Draco sat down on a chair a little to the side, while healer assistants cleaned up the bloody sheets and gown and towels, and watched his daughter sleep, holding tight onto one of his fingers and making sucking movements with her mouth from time to time.

'If only I knew who to thank for these miracles in my life' he mused by himself, while leaning his tall frame back in the flimsy chair once again with a smile.

After a while when his arm grew heavy with the strain of the holding the little body on it, he carefully put her down in her crib where she continued to sleep, and with a last kiss on the sleeping Hermione's forehead, he left the room to floo his mother that she had a healthy beautiful granddaughter.

.

Hermione woke to her son's squealing, bent over the crib: "She looks just like me."

"Yes, sweety, she does. Exactly like you," she said with a smile.

"Mummy," Scorpius exclaimed and skipped to her bed immediately to hop and climb on and give her a hug.

"Grandmother had me look through Daddy's toy box and in the afternoon we went to Diagon Alley and had ice cream. It was great," he told her excitedly.

Hermione looked over his head at her mother-in-law and said: "Thank you, Narcissa"

"Don't mention it," Narcissa Malfoy waved off. "Anything to give you the time to bring such beautiful babies into the world. Draco, may I have her now? After all, this is what I came for," she imperiously demanded from her only son, who wouldn't let go of his daughter.

With a sigh, he passed the baby into his mother's capable hands and joined Hermione and Scorpius in the bed.

"Grandma said she would take me to the Zoo tomorrow if you won't be back."

"Well, perhaps Grandma can take you there anyway, even if we will be back. Your mummy and Cassie will need lots of rest, even if they don't have to stay here at St. Mungo's anymore," Draco said.

"Of course, I can," Narcissa said distractedly, while making grand big smiling grimaces at the baby in her arm. "She has your eyes as well, Draco."

He sighed. "Yes, so now we know what really the Malfoy marker is. Although, I expect that Scorpius will go lighter as he grows older, as all male Malfoys."

Narcissa shrugged. "I don't care either way. And it can happen to Cassie as well. We have almost no precedence case, what with Malfoy women being so few over the centuries. A true miracle."

"All due to my wife, here," Draco said with a smile, turning to Hermione and kissing her fully. "You are truly magical."

Hermione grinned: "Perhaps the Malfoy's should have brought a Muggleborn witch into the family before. Who knows what could have happened?"

"Miracles, is what I think," Draco whispered in her ear. She giggled.

Scorpius cuddled between his lovey-dovey parents and yawned heartily, not unlike his sister earlier. Narcissa noticed it and put her granddaughter down with a heavy sigh. "I better bring Scorpius home. It's past his bed time. Send me an owl when you will be coming home tomorrow."

Draco nodded. "Will do, mother." And Hermione backed him up with another "Thank you, Narcissa."

Narcissa hugged her daughter-in-law. "Anything for you, my dear."

"Hey, and what about me?" Draco whined.

"Yes, yes, you as well, Draco. But I expect to have some extra quality time with my granddaughter for my favours," Narcissa grinned at her son.

He grumbled something that sounded awfully like "When I can arrange it to let go off her for more than two minutes."

When Narcissa picked Scorpius up, he mumbled sleepily: "Isn't Mummy coming with us?"

"No, sweety, your mummy needs to rest here in the hospital one night. And we'll go to the Zoo tomorrow and see if we can find a nice "Welcome-home" gift for her and your sister, what do you say?"

Scorpius mumbled something which sounded like an agreement and then something with Daddy in it.

"I'll stay with your mummy and sister a little longer, big boy. You are having a sleepover with Grandma. But tomorrow I will bring them both home, alright?" He gave his son a good-night kiss and said "Thank you, mother" once more.

Narcissa Malfoy smiled. "Of course, Draco. That's what family is for."

He smiled back.

When his mother had left with the half asleep Scorpius in her arms, he pulled the crib with the gurgling baby closer to Hermione's bed and made to sit down, when she reminded him: "You can give her to me. It's time for a feed."

He picked Cassie carefully up and put her next to Hermione on the bed, and watched his wife putting his daughter on her breast.

Watching Hermione nursing and having a mother-daughter moment when their eyes connected and she smiled at the baby, made his throat go tight again. He sat on the bed ledge and leaned over Hermione's legs for purchase.

Hermione leaned back with a sigh: "A few more weeks of recovery and I can finally go back to working the compow with you."

Draco looked unsure. "Are you sure you don't want to wait some more? After all, there's no deadline for us and we've already done so much. I wouldn't mind at all to take an extended vacation. When you're fit again, that is."

Hermione smiled at him. "I know we have no deadline. And we are nowhere close to finding the counter to Avada Kedavra. It will take so much longer." She shook her head in exasperation. Draco smirked. Not being able to simply research and find a solution was still inconceivable for Hermione.

"But I feel almost handicapped without our shared magic. And we know it's not harmful to use it while pregnant. Just the potentially accidental meetings with curses we cut out. And that was alright. But I want to feel empowered again, when working it. Sitting around being pregnant didn't really suit me."

Draco kissed her blanket covered hip. He loved every part of Hermione's body, even seemingly insignificant ones like her hip. Everything about her was magical and enchanted him, down to his root. Still. It had only gotten stronger over time. If she ever accidentally lost a finger, he was sure he would grieve like for a lost friend.

Sometimes he thought he was going crazy with his obsession, but then Hermione kissed him good and pulled him back to reality whenever that happened. She had a one-of-a-kind way to pull him down to the naked reality. Especially the naked part.

He shook his head. He always had an intense relationship with his sexuality but being with his wife made him feel oversexed at times. There was just nothing comparable than connecting with her deep in her body and feel their magic sweep through him. He felt his root twitching.

And he couldn't say "No" to her, especially since he knew there was no harm.

"Alright. But after you sated your hunger for magical fireworks, I insist that you take time to recover properly."

Hermione grinned. "Whatever for?" She knew exactly what Draco was referring to. It still amazed her, but Draco hadn't wavered in his devotion to her. Not one bit. He still loved every bit of her. Even in her swollen pregnant form, he had.

And his devotion to their son had severely impressed her. Who would have thought that Draco Malfoy would turn out to be such perfect husband material? She was aware that their bliss in the bedroom was enhanced by their shared magic but that didn't make it any less endearing. And, well - blissful.

"For the firework dedicated to your husband. It's been a long time since I was ridden into the sundown and seeing stars."

She laughed. "Come here, you."

When Draco bent over her, her breast still tightly latched in her daughters sucking mouth, she kissed him in a way that made both of them breathless. Draco had just taken a deep breath and was going for the second round with his wife's dark eyes boring into his and his trousers needing to be shifted, when it knocked on the door. Draco sat back a little with a groan and covered Hermione's exposed breast with a blanket, before a healer put her head in the door. She smiled kindly but remorseful.

"Mr and Mrs Malfoy, I'm so sorry. I would leave you to your quiet time, but there's a whole crowd of people out here in the hallway, wanting to visit you. And we can't have them clogging up our hospital. They won't leave though, unless I at least talked to you. Please, tell me I can send them away."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at her husband: "Draco, how come there are so many people out there? I barely finished delivering and I'm fairly certain that your mother wouldn't inform crowds of people while being out with Scorpius."

Draco looked very annoyed at the interruption. What timing. "I may have gotten in a quick floo call to Potter, informing him that I pulled equal with his two brats, but that my daughter was prettier than his. How was I to know that he would use it as an excuse to come here, likely wanting to compare their beauties?"

Hermione looked baffled for all but three seconds. And then broke out laughing whole heartedly. "Are you saying my god-daughter is ugly?"

"I said no such thing," Draco mumbled. "But you can't deny that our daughter is leagues prettier than any Potter child could ever be. Can you imagine how she will look when she's 16, with her blond hair and grey eyes, your pretty face and my tall stature? I'll have to hex every suitor from the Manor's doorstep. What kind of mother would you be if you didn't think that?"

Hermione laughed so hard that it hurt her sides and Cassiopeia unlatched from her breast to stare at her mother puzzled.

When she could fathom enough breath to address the poor waiting healer, she panted: "Let them in. I'm in a good mood, thanks to my lovely husband here. But tell them only for five minutes. And make sure you'll shoo them out in five minutes. It makes more of an impression if you do it."

The healer nodded with a grin at seeing Hermione Malfoy, nee Granger, and her unlikely but perfect husband Draco Malfoy in such a lovely interaction and went out again to give the instructions to Harry Potter and extended family.

The world would heal after all. One hearty laugh at a time.

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_A/N: Yay, this is it, the end. It really is. Thank you all reviewers who accompanied and supported me on the way, and you, who put me on favourites and story alert._

_Before you say it, I am aware that Harry's and Ginny's second child is a boy, Albus Severus, but I'd already written it before I remembered. And now I'm just leaving it, AU and all. For this and likely for other related but separate one-shots that will come in the future, the canon timing may be a little off at times for the sake of the story. _

_I hope I covered all open ends. If you miss something, tell me, and I'll try and fit it in. I have a few ideas in my head for the "future". There won't be a sequel but maybe a few one-shots. When I ever write another long story, I will write it out first and then start publishing it. Or at least, have the plot sketched out entirely before I start publishing. And make sure I have more time to write, in the very least. The pressure was terrible, and I hate to let you hang for weeks on end. With work, it will be that way for many months now. So, it will be a while._

_I was reading "The Fallout" by everythursday (over on H&V) recently, which is a war story, and I realize that the war in my story falls very short (I don't like gruesome fight description. I'm also a nurse and watching and describing blood for fun is not my cup of tea. I've seen it for real). I may be tempted to expand my story for a bit (eventually), so we see more Draco and Hermione fight action, more use of their compow and to really see the war end, not fizzle out as it is right now. But for now the story stands as is._

_Watch out for one-shot "Fear of Flying" when Hermione takes (it) off with Draco on a broom. And something about Quidditch and Draco finally catching the snitch (another much overused cliché, but I had some ideas around it), is already posted._

_Let me know if you want to see them do something specific. I could imagine that you want to see more of them working the compow, but that's not even clearly in my head as a situation yet. So, if you have ideas, let me know. _

_In a review. Or PM. I don't bite. _

_Mostly._

_Cheers_

_River in Egypt_


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